the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

Thanks to ongoing--not just yesterday, when Montezuma's Violent Revenge struck me just before I drove through the front gate on my way to teach class--gastrointestinal problems, today I had the distinct pleasure of doing a three hour blood test after a 12-hour fast. For lactose intolerance. 

Before I went to bed, Mich said, "I hope you enjoyed that ice cream dinner you had. It may be your last." 

Thanks, Sweetie. 

Anyway...seriously? They need blood to determine lactose intolerance, or this just another excuse to poke me? Couldn't they have just, y'know, fed me ice cream and waited for me to get sick, or at worse, asked me to crap in a bowl? Did they really need to starve me for 12 hours, poke me for blood, make me drink something funky, then poke me again every thirty minutes for more blood for three hours? 

So I go down to Fort Carson, right? Because this is where the GI doc works--who will, next week, have the honor of giving me a two-way GI check--which Tricare referred me to. Thus, all my pre-op tests are scheduled there. Not necessary, of course, since the medical computer system is accessible from any military installation, but...ok. I go into the lab, check in, and they hand me what looks like half a cup of some clear chilled liquid, five stickers for blood, and send me DIRECTLY into the lab for my first draw. The tech draws a tiny bit a blood then hands me the solution. "You have five minutes to drink that," she says. As I'm removing the cap, she says, "You may want to take your time; you don't want to make yourself sick. If you throw up, you'll have to start over another day." 

I may have actually barfed 15 times in my whole life. I'm one of those sad creatures who gets monstrously nauseated but doesn't hork. 

So I sucked it down in about 10 seconds, give or take. It tastes like koolaid, but without flavor. In other words, it tastes like sugar water. 

I went to the waiting room and set my phone alarm, just in case I got sucked into my book and forgot the time. After that, it was a matter of popping back into the "drawing room"--it sounds so Victorian--periodically and announcing that I'm a "timed draw," at which point the nearest person would drop what they were doing, possibly leaving blood spurting everywhere, and attend to me, the Queen. 

Kidding. They would direct me to "any open seat" and the next available tech would come make small talk and suck my blood. 

By the last one, my tech--who felt comfortable asking now that we were familiar--asked if the solution had nauseated me. I said no. She said she'd done the test and within an hour, she'd felt...uncomfortable. 

In Turkey, Damon and I called this sensation "percolation." 

She, as it turns out, is lactose intolerant. I suspect I am not--as I didn't have the slightest problem with the solution, even after yesterday's wicked morning attack--which is good, because I have a freezer full of ice cream. 

After they released me, I dropped by Macaroni Grill for some shrimp portofino and some house wine, because I was famished. I was wearing sweats, a t-shirt, Birkenstocks, and had my hair in a ponytail. I'm not sure the ensemble even matches, so I looked homeless, but the bit I was concerned with was looking like I'd been shooting up heroin, so I put on my bright red plaid flannel shirt with only a small rip in the sleeve, which made me look worse. Like, Untouchable. They welcomed me in and served me anyway. Bless them. 

Next in the line-up is my "colo class" on Thursday. This is where they'll tell me after the fact that I must take the day off before the colostomy to prep for it. They did not mention this when I arranged the colo in the first place. That would have been a good time, though, y'think? 

d