Paging Dr. House

I did it. I worried myself into a stomach acid nightmare. One bowl of cream of wheat and my insides were on fire. In no dimension does that make sense.

In case it is the starting of an ulcer, the doctor signed me up for an upper GI x-ray. It sounded easy enough. Just take pictures of my guts and tell me if I'm going to die of anxiety. Wrong.

On the table in the x-ray room, being good little ducklings in a row, were plastic cups filled with various liquids and solids, all of them white. That's a good sign right? White is a hopeful color. At least I kept reminding myself of that. The tech starts to explain the procedure. I am expected to swallow the tablespoon of tiny pellets because they will create gas in my system to make it easier to see things. After which I cannot burp to release the gas. (Let's now dwell on how I would keep myself from releasing it any other way.) The thicker white goo would be after the gas pellets. It would taste awful, I was forewarned, but make me feel better after the pellets. Huh? Would the pellets make me breathe fire after they created gas?

After gulping the goo, I would be expected to roll around on a table so they could get all angles of my stomach and esophagus. Now, I'm not a genius, but rolling around on a full stomach would make people without tummy troubles vomit. This was getting more interesting by the moment. Finally, the tech informed me the doctor would be in briefly to perform the x-ray.

In my head Foreman, Chase, or 13 would be walking in. Heck, I'd even settle for that Taub guy. Why can't visits to the hospital be Hollywood glamorous? See, still in my head of course, should one of the already mentioned characters appear I would know that Dr. Gregory House is right around the corner. How awesome would that be? I could match wit with the most cynnical of physicians.

Instead I had a nice, elderly doctor come in and hand me the little pellets to get started. He reminded me that they needed to go as far back in my throat as possible because they would start reacting as soon as they hit my tongue. He wasn't kidding!

I discovered the secret ingredient in Wonka's Fizzy Lifting drinks. Holy cow. The moment I got those pellets in my system I expected to shoot straight up to the ceiling. I kept having to keep myself from burping, and a couple of seconds after the gas had formed it felt like a flaming arrow was being lodged in my chest. The doc caught onto my pain and immediately took his pictures and had me start drinking the goo. Instant relief! Whew.

Once my stomach was weighed down with the second cup of goo, I had to roll around to make sure it coated everything. Again, that about made me throw up. All in all, the whole procedure took about 10 minutes. I couldn't decide if I would rather be tortured by drinking gas pellets and being told not to burp or under a magnesium sulfate drip.

Now I just have to wait and see what my doctor says. In the meantime, I will burp my way out of here.