06.23.04
I saw my gastroenterologist today, and he told me that the endoscopy and ultrasound hadn't really yielded any results to explain my stomach problems, so he wanted to run another test, called a small bowel follow-through.
This test means that I get to chug a barium shake, and then for the next couple of hours, periodically have x-ray images taken of my small intestines!
At some point in late junior high or early high school, I got to get this exact procedure done, the results of which were indeterminate. I got put on a sucky diet that was easily enforced by having someone else with all of the money buying the groceries and cooking all of the food.
This time it is harder to avoid certain foods, like tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, garlic and onions, spicy foods, fat/fried foods, coffee, chocolate, mint, alcohol, citrus, etc. Oh, and large meals. I'm supposed to eat lots of small, bland, complex carbohydrate-laden meals.
This pretty much precludes me eating anything I like except some fruit, rice, lean cuts of meat, and broth-based soups.
Yes, because that's going to happen real soon now.
I suppose this means I shouldn't have some sort of crazy margarita-filled mexican food fest to celebrate my birthday in a couple of weeks.
Uh-huh.
The only thing that has me bothered besides the rapidly-mounting medical bills associated with my visits to the specialist is something that Dr. Howden told me when we were scheduling my appointment with Radiology.
What he said is that if the small bowel comes back fine, he is afraid that there might not be anything definable wrong with me.
A lot of women my age are starting to present with similar symptoms, none of which have been diagnosed with any particular physiological malady.
What's in your head?