Finally we got to sleep in!! ha. We didn’t have to be at the doctors until 8:20! Not the usual ‘sleeping in’ time but it was better than having to wake up before 6. Of course it wasn’t helping that we were staying up till midnight or later every night but God was also working through our relationship with the family we were staying with. They were such a blessing to us. More than words could ever say.
So the skin test was the first part of the day. They injected 3 spots in my arms, one on the left and two on the right. They said to come back on Monday to get them read and they would be looking for a raised bump and itchiness from at least one of the areas. It only took about 5 minutes and then we were off to get the CT scan and CT enterography.
This was the part I was excited about. I had had a CT scan before but the CT enterography is a new kind of test and Mayo Jacksonville is one of the only hospitals in the world that has the technology for it! And I just ‘happened’ to be there where it was... God is good! The test is used to look into the small intestine because you cannot see the whole small intestine through a colonoscopy. So before this machine was invented the only other way to see it was to swallow a capsule video camera but this was only useful in seeing what the walls of the bowel looked like but you couldn’t tell if there was any inflammation or not. The new CT enterography however, takes pictures of your body in slices and then uses software to put the pictures together to create a 3-D picture or your insides. It’s pretty amazing.
Anyway, we had looked up what the test was exactly and it sounded pretty harmless. (I was just excited I didn’t have to go through another colonoscopy! Ha.) We went back to the waiting area and then the nurses called me back to start an IV for the contrast. The contrast is basically a liquid they pump into you really quickly that makes your insides kind of ‘glow in the dark’ so the machine can pick them up when it takes pictures. I was very excited when they said they were going to start an IV because that meant I didn’t have to drink the contrast!!... or so I thought. Turns out I was dead wrong. I now had an IV and the nurse said I was going to have to drink something as well :(
I mistakenly asked the nurse if it was nasty, to which she looked at me with a face that said “Are you serious?,” and then replied, “Honey, it’s awful. It’s supposed to be blueberry but it ain’t blueberry. That’s for sure.” Why she said this I do not know but I then began to fall apart. This does not usually happen to me except for when I’ve had a long round of doctor visits so I guess I was due for a good breakdown. My eyes began to water and I could feel my stomach starting to churn. It knew what was coming.
I had drunk a barium shake before and it was absolutely terrible. It took me forever to drink the 16 ounces of chalky, chunky, strawberry-banana nastiness and I fought the whole time to keep it down. I hate, loathe, and completely despise drinking anything that is not pleasant but if I had to I would do it again. So I immediately started working up the nerve to go through it all again. There aren’t too many things I can’t just suck up and get through but this was certainly one of them.
I had already changed into the hospital gown so I was freezing as I walked back out to sit with my parents again in the waiting area. The nurse then came out with a warm blanket and the dreaded blueberry concoction. To my complete horror it was not in a 16 ounce bottle but a 20 ounce cup!! I know 4 ounces might not seem like a big deal but for me it was just one more blow to my ‘do it to it’ attitude and it was about to be the final blow. She gave me the straw and I looked down into the cup. The liquid was a cloudy clear color, looked like a watered down syrup consistency, and smelled like lip smackers chap stick. I gagged.
Mom took one look at the cup and knew I was falling apart inside so she immediately started texting everyone asking for prayer :) The nurse was walking away and I was just beginning to psyche myself back up again when she turned back around and said, “I’ll bring you the second glass in 15 minutes and then the third 15 minutes after that ok honey.” She smiled and walked away and I thought I was going to die.
Luckily, I hadn’t drunk too much liquid that morning so I actually got the first glass down ok. I took my time and avoided as many taste buds as possible. Then came the second glass and my stomach had decided it had had enough. With every gulp it threatened to heave so I stared at the ceiling and tried to think about anything other than what I was doing. Suddenly the second 15 minutes were up and I hadn’t even drunk half of the glass!! I was so nauseous and scared that I would throw up and have to start over. Then a miracle happened. The nurse said I was small enough to only have to drink 2 glasses!! I was so relieved that I thought I was going to cry for real this time. Ha. She gave me a few more minutes and then took me back to begin the scan. Hallelujah that was over! So thank you to everyone who prayed for me during that time. I know I couldn’t have made it through without it!
The actual scan was the easy part. I always start to fall asleep lying on the table before I go through the tube until they inject the contrast through the IV. Everything is fine at first then you suddenly get a metallic taste in your mouth and then your whole body gets warm. That part is fine but then it hits. You get a funny sensation like you have to pee real bad and then you get really warm. It’s so embarrassing because it feels just like you’ve wet yourself all over the table! It’s the most awful feeling and even though you know it’s not real it just feels terrible. But that only lasted for a few minutes and then it was done! The test was over and I was free to go for a while.
Next was the consultation with Dr. Garland, my pulmonologist. Long and short of that visit was that he didn’t see any unusual scarring or problems with my lungs so he decided to stand by what he had originally said. If Dr. Picco decided that imuran was going to be the only medicine that would work for me then he didn’t want to keep me from that opportunity. So now we had the all clear for imuran from the pulmonologist and hematologist. Now on to infections disease doc and cardiovascular doc!!
So the skin test was the first part of the day. They injected 3 spots in my arms, one on the left and two on the right. They said to come back on Monday to get them read and they would be looking for a raised bump and itchiness from at least one of the areas. It only took about 5 minutes and then we were off to get the CT scan and CT enterography.
This was the part I was excited about. I had had a CT scan before but the CT enterography is a new kind of test and Mayo Jacksonville is one of the only hospitals in the world that has the technology for it! And I just ‘happened’ to be there where it was... God is good! The test is used to look into the small intestine because you cannot see the whole small intestine through a colonoscopy. So before this machine was invented the only other way to see it was to swallow a capsule video camera but this was only useful in seeing what the walls of the bowel looked like but you couldn’t tell if there was any inflammation or not. The new CT enterography however, takes pictures of your body in slices and then uses software to put the pictures together to create a 3-D picture or your insides. It’s pretty amazing.
Anyway, we had looked up what the test was exactly and it sounded pretty harmless. (I was just excited I didn’t have to go through another colonoscopy! Ha.) We went back to the waiting area and then the nurses called me back to start an IV for the contrast. The contrast is basically a liquid they pump into you really quickly that makes your insides kind of ‘glow in the dark’ so the machine can pick them up when it takes pictures. I was very excited when they said they were going to start an IV because that meant I didn’t have to drink the contrast!!... or so I thought. Turns out I was dead wrong. I now had an IV and the nurse said I was going to have to drink something as well :(
I mistakenly asked the nurse if it was nasty, to which she looked at me with a face that said “Are you serious?,” and then replied, “Honey, it’s awful. It’s supposed to be blueberry but it ain’t blueberry. That’s for sure.” Why she said this I do not know but I then began to fall apart. This does not usually happen to me except for when I’ve had a long round of doctor visits so I guess I was due for a good breakdown. My eyes began to water and I could feel my stomach starting to churn. It knew what was coming.
I had drunk a barium shake before and it was absolutely terrible. It took me forever to drink the 16 ounces of chalky, chunky, strawberry-banana nastiness and I fought the whole time to keep it down. I hate, loathe, and completely despise drinking anything that is not pleasant but if I had to I would do it again. So I immediately started working up the nerve to go through it all again. There aren’t too many things I can’t just suck up and get through but this was certainly one of them.
I had already changed into the hospital gown so I was freezing as I walked back out to sit with my parents again in the waiting area. The nurse then came out with a warm blanket and the dreaded blueberry concoction. To my complete horror it was not in a 16 ounce bottle but a 20 ounce cup!! I know 4 ounces might not seem like a big deal but for me it was just one more blow to my ‘do it to it’ attitude and it was about to be the final blow. She gave me the straw and I looked down into the cup. The liquid was a cloudy clear color, looked like a watered down syrup consistency, and smelled like lip smackers chap stick. I gagged.
Mom took one look at the cup and knew I was falling apart inside so she immediately started texting everyone asking for prayer :) The nurse was walking away and I was just beginning to psyche myself back up again when she turned back around and said, “I’ll bring you the second glass in 15 minutes and then the third 15 minutes after that ok honey.” She smiled and walked away and I thought I was going to die.
Luckily, I hadn’t drunk too much liquid that morning so I actually got the first glass down ok. I took my time and avoided as many taste buds as possible. Then came the second glass and my stomach had decided it had had enough. With every gulp it threatened to heave so I stared at the ceiling and tried to think about anything other than what I was doing. Suddenly the second 15 minutes were up and I hadn’t even drunk half of the glass!! I was so nauseous and scared that I would throw up and have to start over. Then a miracle happened. The nurse said I was small enough to only have to drink 2 glasses!! I was so relieved that I thought I was going to cry for real this time. Ha. She gave me a few more minutes and then took me back to begin the scan. Hallelujah that was over! So thank you to everyone who prayed for me during that time. I know I couldn’t have made it through without it!
The actual scan was the easy part. I always start to fall asleep lying on the table before I go through the tube until they inject the contrast through the IV. Everything is fine at first then you suddenly get a metallic taste in your mouth and then your whole body gets warm. That part is fine but then it hits. You get a funny sensation like you have to pee real bad and then you get really warm. It’s so embarrassing because it feels just like you’ve wet yourself all over the table! It’s the most awful feeling and even though you know it’s not real it just feels terrible. But that only lasted for a few minutes and then it was done! The test was over and I was free to go for a while.
Next was the consultation with Dr. Garland, my pulmonologist. Long and short of that visit was that he didn’t see any unusual scarring or problems with my lungs so he decided to stand by what he had originally said. If Dr. Picco decided that imuran was going to be the only medicine that would work for me then he didn’t want to keep me from that opportunity. So now we had the all clear for imuran from the pulmonologist and hematologist. Now on to infections disease doc and cardiovascular doc!!
No comments:
Post a Comment