Long, long ago, a couple evolutions of life away, on the far side of the world, Irv made some of his award winning chili for the church flea market. And it truly was fantastic stuff. I just about inhaled the first bowl and Mom only got a taste, but that was enough for her to get a bowl and me to get another. It was hard not to go for a third.
So it's an average Sunday afternoon when I get the sudden and surprising sympathy for the summer sky as a cumulonimbus begins building inside my gut. But it's not the nice, puffy white sort with a black core lashing out bolts of searing electricity. There is a black core and searing bolts, but instead of puffy white there's rancid green, and the vile bolts sear the insides almost as much as the nose.
Half an hour later, while the air is still clearing, Mom comes rushing home with a similar story.
Fast forward to this morning. Without getting too graphic--that will come in a moment--after a few days on a soft diet and a long, long, long day of fasting, all punctuated with considerable spells on the squatterpits, the pre-multioscopy turbolax prep had very little to clear from the system, and when the morning dose produced a violent, expulsive reaction from the top end, it wasn't substantially different from what had been coming out the other side. By the time I felt it was reasonable to leave, dehydration completely occluded hunger--what a novelty not to be hungry.
Riding on the back of a mototaxi weaving through traffic and rowing between sideview mirrors--when there's not enough room to pull straight through, the dodging motion looks a lot like paddling a kayak--was a little more challenging than usual. But there was the prospect of an IV drip waiting for me, followed by a glass of juice and a bottle of water, probably a cola, and the prospect of food.
Fortunately, while the waiting room was already full, the flatline weigh-in boosted me directly to the bathroom, where I was to take off my pants and wrap up with a sheet, and then to a gurney in the middle of the waiting room.
Stateside, it would've felt awkward. Here, walking in front of a room full of people with my knobby twigs sticking out of a thin cotton skirt (of sorts) didn't draw any more attention than making the same trip with blond hair and white skin.
And there was that prospect of an IV.
Someone wheeled me into the same room I first had a consultation, pulled around a wall of monitors, and closed a curtain. Still waiting on that IV, there was a good moment getting hooked up to the monitoring equipment--the aide had to check the blood oxygen monitor on himself--twice--before he would believe it: still waiting for the IV, without any drugs, despite weighing in at 38K with a 91/42 BP, my pulse was a steady 52 with a 100% oxygen content. Still carry some of the mountains with me.
So they give me a half dose of valium, roll me on my side, and the doc--a tiny little lady with thick glasses and the sort of voice that echoes to the nether reaches of the classroom as she sits up front, frantically waving her hand with "Mr. Rumskelter, Mr. Rumskelter, I know the answer!"--points at the monitor I'm supposed to watch and narrates a trip a ways up into my small intestine, including numerous stops at places the average tourist would never want to stop to collect biopsy samples.
Which is where the billowing thunderbusters come in--in one hand, she has a controller that blasts air or water, depending on the need.
Irv's prizewinning chili is a warm springtime breeze compared to an industrio-medical combo water cannon/air compressor going full bore.
Meanwhile, the busy waiting room is filing through the waiting room around me. Someone keeps bumping the gurney from the curtain at my head, the curtain behind the twin peaks around the world's newest volcano keeps opening and closing and finally just opening a ways, and I'm working very, very hard to focus on the completely disassociated screen showing me a wild spelunking voyage down a passage that expands and contracts in time with my disassociated breathing.
And then they finish, change the cotton miniskirt, and wheel me back into the waiting room, where I'm supposed to spend an hour waiting for the drugs to wear off.
The good news is that despite being wretchedly difficult to pierce, my veins can take an extraordinarily fast drip, so I was able to drain the IV bag in record time. It would've been a different story had they given me a juice tray.
First we had to unhook the IV and de-pierce me. Then ten more minutes in repose in the waiting room. Then I could sit up for five minutes and someone would help me to the bathroom to change. Then I could walk around the waiting room for a while. Finally they would call someone with a wheelchair to take me down to turn in the samples for biopsy.
But first the blood pressure cuff--just enough time for me to sit up, grab my sandals, and bolt for freedom.
Could I dance, I would've done so to assuage the worried flock, but hopping from one foot to the other while touching my nose and holding my arms up or out.
Not to be a bad patient, I just want a damn drink.
Which eventually happens, and I get back to the hotel, and it returns to the joys of balancing an even greater hunger with an intestinal racetrack lubed by the previous day's turbo stuff. Which is fun.
But here's hoping that since she spotted so many problem spots she'll be able to figure out what's causing at least some of them.
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