Ready, Reset, Go! (2006-2008)

What I learned at the hospital yesterday...

Bottom line: unusual colored patch is still there in the stomach (the true stomach, by the way, not meaning your "belly".). On first viewing, no larger or smaller than last year. Took more samples to biopsy. (It had already biopsied as harmless last year).

Until I hear from the doc - and I will call her - I'm assuming that:

no size change in a year + no lab positives = no worries.

This is a relatively new attitude with me, though I think it's actually medically sound.

Plus, really, I have too many things to worry about in life anyway.

Imagine the worries we'd all have if everyone had full body scans.

Anyways, since I wasn't having nearly the fun of last year, I got less drugs in my IV (awwww...)
But just having Adavan was moooooree than sufficient for a lightweight non-druggie like me. I was sleeping like for the rest of the day (yay!).

An endoscopy (alone) takes maybe 8 minutes to do.
The gaging kinda makes it seem longer.

They spray your throat with a "numbing" spray. While the mouth indeed feels numb-ish, I question it's ultimate purpose. (ie, I'm not sure if it's possible to completely eliminate the gag reflex with chemicals.)

I laughed when the cool nurse told me, "this stuff is horrible. It will smell like bananas but taste like gasoline."

She was totally right. My internal brain narrative was:

(spritzzzzzzz)
"wow, that's cold. Oooooh Banana! Tastes like banana candy not so bad OH MY GOD Aaaaaaagggrgrggrgggrggrgrrr - Bubbling Gasoline!!!"

"It's like EVIL POP ROCKS!!!!!"

Still, even the banana petrol could not stop the occasional gagging.

But note, please, before making any social judgements, that the part that makes you gag is this big knobby ring that sits in the upper part of your mouth - specifically at that one part that makes one gag - from which the majority of the scope exits into the stomach.

The effect is as if someone just stuck a finger in your mouth and pressed specifically at that spot and wiggled it there.

This is not a situation one normally finds oneself in - day or night, alone or with company.

I think this is a design problem.

Now, it has been observed, if the device was designed differently, such that the pressure was distributed more equally in one's throat so it pushes equally around the circumference of the esophagus, before, at, and after the gag spot, the gag reflex is significantly squelched.

Perhaps, as suggested by the numbing spray, if it was in the shape of a banana, or something similarly long and mildly thick.

I'll bet there's a patent in there somewhere.

Or at least a South Park episode.