How did I miss that?

Yesterday I had my barium enema test at the hospital.  I had to prep on Sunday with clear liquids and two bottles of magnesium citrate (I chose the cherry flavor -- not the best).  The prep went okay, and I didn't get nauseous.  I am also here to tell you it was successful.  In a big way.

I did end up with another migraine on Sunday night because that's what happens to me when I don't eat.  It was creeping up on me slowly and then it goes full blown in the middle of the night.  I liken it to having rusty re-bar thrust through my eye socket.  R had to get up to break into the packaging on one of the free pills my doc gave me and it took him about ten minutes of cussing at around 1:30 in the morning.

So I go for the test and I'm sitting in the waiting room wondering why they haven't given me any bottles of barium or whatever it is to drink.  I think it will take forever if they don't get me started.  Hmm. After a while they call my name and I'm led to the room where the procedure is explained to me.  How the hell did I miss the enema part of a barium enema?  All I was focusing on was the barium.  What a complete and utter dork.

Now that I'm up to speed on the procedure, I just go with it.   I am making small talk with the technician, who is a really nice young man.  Force of habit, I ask him where he got his training and he tells me he is currently a student at the local university.  I tell him I work there which was why I was asking and then I think in my head, "Now I've made it weird."  I wondered if the poor guy was thinking to himself, "I don't want to imagine this old lady anywhere but here," but he didn't act like it.  Oh well.

The procedure, while dignity is checked at the door, was really pretty easy.  A little pressure, a lot of repositioning, and some epic gas afterwards, and I was off.  And since I'd taken my migraine medicine in the middle of the night, I was not moaning and rocking in pain like when I had the colonoscopy.  I went home and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading off to work.  I was still dealing with some gas and some barium, but not bad overall.

And I thought to myself I must have been the most clueless person in the hospital that day, and that's including those people under general anesthesia.