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Hey Ya'll,
Well, last night I went to bed really early for me!! I went to bed at about 9:30 pm. But of course that was because I took a nice little Sleeping Pill!! LOL And this was only because I needed to get up at 3:50 AM!!! This was so that I could take a shower before leaving for Reno. I had taken a shower yesterday afternoon, but usually my hair looks like s**t after sleeping, if you know what I mean!! But after waking up so early, I found that my hair didn't look too bad...probably because I wasn't sleeping on it long enough!! LOL Plus because of the snow, I was going to wear a hat anyway!!
So we left for Reno at 5 am, and of course it started to SNOW!! I thought that the Winter Snow was over here! And here just last week, I had to turn on the Air Conditioner!! Go Figure....anyway, so we drove to Reno, and made it ok, arriving just before 6 am, like Walt wanted. So I left him there to practice Driving for his CDL Exam, which was setup for 1 pm today (Thursday). I then drove to where my Surgeon's office is, as well as where I had to endure my Upper GI.
I made a detour on the way there, so that I could visit the new RV Park that we will be moving to in a few weeks. It looks even better than it did when we visited it a few years ago, when it first opened. So we are looking forward to moving in. Luckily for me, there is lots of shopping close by. They even have 2 of my favorite Restaurants within a half mile from us!! We could actually walk over. Also close by is a Target, and group of Outlet Stores. I always wanted to live close to Outlet Stores. Now maybe I will be tempted enough to go shopping, which would also mean WALKING, and in turn EXERCISING!! This is a good thing, right???
But then I drove on over to the Medical Offices, arriving just before 7 am. You would think that that would gain me a fantastic parking space, right??? Well, this place is located right next door to a Hospital and has a lot of Medical Offices and Testing Groups in it. Not to mention an Exercise Place...so luckily for me, I do have a Handicapped Placard, and was able to find a parking space fairly close. Which meant that I only had to walk about 125 feet to the entrance of the building. Within 30 minutes of arriving, the cars were really flowing in! I couldn't believe it, by 8 am, they were fighting for parking spaces! So I am really glad that I decided to go early instead of waiting until 9 am to get there (my appointment check in time was for 9:30 am). So the early bird got the worm, so to speak this time. And once I got that parking space, I wasn't planning on giving it up easily! I had planned on staying there at the Medical Building until time to go pick up Walt as I was in covered parking (FREE at that), and it was snowing!!
After checking in, (and paying $230 towards my annual Medical deductible, as if this test wasn't bad enough).....I was called back to disrobe. I was expecting an Upper GI, like I have had in the past. But nooooo, my Doctor wanted to make sure he had a view of my entire Digestive System (or something like that). He wanted something called a Small Bowel Follow Through ((SBFT), which is a timed series of films) as well. This is what is said about SBFT, "the only way to be sure the Terminal Ileum is fully seen, is to see the Colon or Ileocecal Valve, which is the most Distal Segment of the Small Bowel, just before the Colon". And because of this, I wasn't given the standard Barium to drink. Trust me, I would have preferred it!
I ended up drinking about 2.5 bottles of this CRAP, at 240 ml per bottle!! It took me about an hour to finally find the information about this solution on the Internet. In all the information on Upper GI, they always kept saying Barium, and I wasn't given Barium to swallow! I-would-have-preferred-it having had both, I know what I am talking about....). LOL What I was given was Gastrografin (Diatrizoic Acid), and this is what Wikipedia says about it: "It is given orally or by enema (Gastrografin, Gastrovist, Gastrovision, MD-Gastroview) to image the gastrointestinal tract. The taste is foul, even when mixed and diluted with fruit juice." Hell Yea it's foul!!! And I had to keep sipping it for over an hour straight! Oh I wish they would have given me the option of an Enema!!!
At first we were all afraid that this was going to take a lot longer than it did, because after I took my first 2 sips of this foul liquid, the Radiologist said that the liquid was barely moving through my Band......meaning that it is TOO TIGHT!! But because my Surgeon ordered the full Upper GI with the SBFT, the Radiologist said that we would try to get it. He wasn't too sure that we would be able to, as tight as I appeared. My fear was that I couldn't finish today, and he would say we needed to do it again after I had had some of the Fill removed!! He said it usually takes at least an hour, and up to 4 hrs for the solution to run through. So we figured with my tight Band, it could be up to 4 hrs. So I was not looking forward to this! Luckily for me though, once it started to flow through, apparently it flowed pretty well the rest of the way down!! So all in all, my testing only took an hour and a half, instead of the possible 4 hrs! Thank you God!
TMI ALERT! TMI ALERT!!
Now for some gross information. The main drawback to this solution, rather than the Barium, is that the Barium gets absorbed into the system, so no bad side effects except possibly having problems with nausea, etc....however, the Foul Tasting Crap that I had to drink, doesn't get absorbed into the system. They did mention this to me, but they didn't mention exactly how it gets expelled!! This is where the TMI comes in, so if you are squeamish, you might want to skip down about 4 paragraphs!! LOL Almost immediately....ok, well about 15 minutes after the test finished, I had gone back out to the car, so that I could do some reading while I was waiting the 3 - 4.5 hrs for Walt to finish.
Then it started happening. I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom, yet again (I had just gone before walking out of the building). I was on my way back in from the car, when my Dad called me. So of course, I got back into the car to talk to him, rather than continuing on into the building, as it was really cold today (did I mention that it snowed off and on all day???). Before we got off the phone though, I realized that I REALLY needed to go, and because of the solution, it wasn't going to wait. So I quickly got off the phone from my Dad, and made a quick walk back into the building, straight to the women's bathroom. YES! I did go some in my pants! UGH!! We're talking pure-liquid-waste here my friends, so there was no holding it in! And of course, I didn't have a change of clothes with me (who would have thought I would need one?), so I had to stay in them, luckily it wasn't too much....but still I knew it was there. And it only got worse!
From that point on, about every 5-10 minutes MAX, I was running for the bathroom! So I basically camped out in one of the chairs that is in the lobby there. So that I could high tail it to the B/R as often as needed!! I couldn't even go back to where I needed to pick up Walt, until about 1:30 pm (I didn't dare go that far from the B/R till then)!! That means that for 2 1/2 hrs, I was in the B/R every 5-10 minutes.....Once I did dare drive back to where I would be picking up Walt, I just made it before I had to hit the B/R....yet again....So afterwords, I purchased a LARGE drink (I was at Mc Donald's, I didn't want to wait at the Driving School. They have a Women's B/R, but I know for a fact that the Men use it too. Think about it, how many Women are there, compared to how many Men???), and I guzzled down about 2 1/2-32oz cups of Diet Coke! I was sooo dehydrated by then! It still wasn't enough, but definitely helped.
Finally Walt called me, to let me know that he was finished, and I raced to go pick him up. I had to go again, before we left Reno too, but then I managed to hold it until we got home. Then all bets were off! I am STILL going, but not quite as much, thank God!! But I will say, that I have lost at least 5 lbs in fluids today!! So tomorrow will tell just how much I get to keep off! LOL Hopefully at least 2-3 lbs of it! As of tonight, I weighted 171.6, which is 1.4 lbs below my lowest weight since Surgery. So if I can stay at least at 173 lbs, then I will be happy, since I had gained back up to about 176.6 (sorry Walt....I lied, I was ashamed to admit it to you).
So! Now my appointment with my Doctor is tomorrow at 8:45 am....again in Reno. Luckily for me, I don't have to get up at 3:50 again! Just 5:45! But hey, it's still better than 3:50 any day. LOL Since the Radiologist basically told me that the Upper GI appears NORMAL, we are guessing that they will slap my wrists for not coming forward sooner, about my being too tight, and having the major Acid Reflux problems, then they will remove some Fill. How much, only tomorrow will tell....I will keep you posted. Hopefully they will only remove enough to give me relief, and not a lot to allow things to settle down. Again, I will keep you posted tomorrow!
Now for my question....based on the photo above, I am sure that you have at least guessed that it has something to do with Zumba (of course, not for Wii, since I don't have one! I would want it in CD or DVD form). I am really interested in it, and almost got into it while we were still living in the house where I had a lot of space to do it in. I have been watching these infomercials about it, where you can buy the CD's/DVD's etc, and work out in your own home. Now the question....for those of you who do Zumba, and I know that there are a lot of you out there....How much space do you need to do it in??? Remember that I live in a small 5th Wheel RV. Our living area only has about a 5x8 rectangular area that I could possibly exercise in. Is this enough? Just curious. I can't afford the setup right now, but I always loved to dance, and maybe at some point in the future, I could get back into it in my own home.
And before I forget, Walt passed the 1st portion of the CDL Exam! To me I think it would be the hardest of the tests. He passed the Pre Trip Vehicle Inspection Walk Around, where you have to walk around the Rig, telling everything that you need to check for before Driving off! I don't remember exactly how many things there are to go through, but I am pretty sure that there are about 138, and you can't miss more than 19 or 20!
Then, IF you passed this 1st test, which Walt did, you go to the next test. Which is The Basic Vehicle Control Skills Test. Which is basically where you show that you can Drive Forward and stop at a set place, be able to Back Up Straight, perform an Alley Dock, Parallel Park (driver side), Parallel Park (conventional side), make a Right Turn, or do a Backward Serpentine. The book says that they MAY have you perform 1 or more of them, but I am pretty sure that you have to do at least 4 of them (their choice, not yours)....Walt did fine, and would have passed this too, but he decided to try to Parallel Park better, and failed.
Even if you pass everything up to that point in the skills test, if you fail one of them....you fail, and have to retake the skills test again. Meaning that when he retakes the Exam, he won't have to retake the 1st portion (since he passed it), but he will have to retake the 2nd portion again! THEN, if he passes it, he can then go on to the 3rd and final portion of the CDL Exam, which is the On Road Driving Test!! If he passes both of them, then he is done, if not, he has to go and retake the final 3rd portion since he would have had to pass the 2nd just to get to the 3rd. So let's hope Walt passes both the remaining two categories the next time!!
Well, I guess I should get off for now. I have a few things I need to do before I go to bed....just to get up way too early again!! Till next time......
PS) Oh by the way, it is now Midnight, and I am STILL going! So I am not sure if I will make it to bed or not....hopefully I will get at least a couple hours of sleep, but hey, I don't want to go to bed if I can't stop going....remember, my side of the bed is on the far side and I only have about 6-8 inches between the bed and the closet, so I can't easily and quickly get out of bed, to make a run to the B/R! Plus the B/R is in the opposite end of the RV!! And I hope that I didn't offend too many of you!! (Blush)
Aloha My Friends :)
2 comments:
I'm sorry I didn't mention that part of the test Debi. Of course I didn't drink that much of the stuff. It didn't give me the "trots" until the next day and the day after and the day after that. I hope you got it out of your system. Sounds like maybe things are ok with you. I am hoping your appt today goes well. My best to you.
Thanks Kathy! Yes, I believe you did mention that the solution you drank was really bad! But I either forgot, or was hoping that it wasn't any worse than the Barium, which isn't all that bad....LOL
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