That barium contrast solution you have to drink before a CT scan?

Tastes like ass.

In case you were wondering.

What brings this on? I’m scheduled for a chest, abdominal and pelvic CT tomorrow morning at the bright and shiny morning hour of seven a.m. Therefore, they thoughtfully let me pick up the contrast packet and mix it myself, to drink right now around the hour of seven p.m. the day before.

Yesterday was even more fun. I saw the doc in the morning since stuff had gotten worse (more bruising, severe headaches to wake me up at night, fever for a few days, fatigue so bad that I can’t sit at my desk for long periods of time, much less fence). Since I had a fever at the office, I got sent for immediate blood cultures, and then they drew blood for a bunch of other tests as well (I lost count of the number of tubes they drew). Did I mention they drew from both arms? My thyroid is enlarged. Doc scheduled a thyroid ultrasound. She hopes to have some sort of answer by next week. I hope, and she hopes, that the answer is something like hyperthyroid something. Because that’s relatively easy to treat. All the OTHER things that my symptoms fit, they’re all…suck. Royally Suck. Shit like leukemia, Hodgkins, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, adrenal gland tumor…things that would really…change everything. As much as I don’t want my doc telling me I’ve got ANY of that stuff, I want to know what’s wrong because I want it fixed. I’m tired of sleeping 10-12 hours a night and still being tired during the day. Tired of the night sweats. Daytime sweating. Fevers. Headaches. Itchiness. Bruising. Sick of being sick, dammit.

Did I mention I have to drink thirty ounces of this stuff? Yeah. Thirty.

I also have to do the 24 hour urine. I picked up the “equipment” from the lab. I get a bucket (this thing to catch the wee) and a jug to pour the wee in. The jug is not see-through, in case you were wondering. Said jug has to be kept cool. Cool as in refrigerated. It’s in the fridge right now (empty, aside from the hydrochloric acid they put in it). This jug being in the fridge freaks Nathan Right The Hell Out. He’s a man that doesn’t like anything related to wee anywhere near anything he might consume. He won’t even go in the fridge. I got home from the grocery store this morning and he said, “Oh good, you’re home. Can you please get me a diet coke out of the fridge?” Now, I can’t figure out why my husband-who-isn’t-freaked-out-by-tarantulas-in-his-pants is Totally Freaked Out over a bit o’ wee. I mean, goodness, how many freaking diapers have I changed that I don’t give a crap about wee as long as it isn’t ON me for a long period of time? So I asked him if he’d ever changed a diaper.

I’ve known this man for years and just found out he has never changed a diaper.

I also get to be injected with the contrast dye. That stuff burns. They said it “might cause a warming sensation.” Sure. When I think “warming sensation” I think of the pleasant warm caress of the sun on a spring morning after a cold winter. But the “warming sensation” the injected dye causes is more along the lines of “you’ve just submerged your body from the inside-out into a habanero pepper. Take that, sucker!”

Did you know that if you mix the barium contrast stuff with grape flavored water you get grape flavored chalk? Honestly, that’s what the mix is, I think. Remember when you were in grade school and the teacher asked you to go beat the dust out of the erasers and you said no, and let some other kid do it? Well, that dust is collected into foil packages, labled and sold as barium contrast solution. Make sure you say thank you to that kid who beat the crap out of those erasers.

The barium has formed a brick in my stomach. Ugh.

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