Gastric emptying

Well, I had my gastric emptying study on Thursday. They had me eat some oatmeal that had a radioactive tracer mixed into it, plus 2 slices of toast with butter and jelly. Let me tell you - I thought I was in big time trouble, but I managed to keep it down.  I have been able to eat oatmeal at home, so I was hoping that the oatmeal here was ok, and it was.  My biggest problem was getting it all IN me. A bowl of oatmeal plus 2 slices of toast is a LOT for me to have to eat! Anyway, once I ate I had to lie on a table where they took a video for 1 minute, then I had to wait (in the waiting room) until 1 hr, 1.5 hrs, 3 hours and 4 hours.  At the beginning, the tech thought that my doctor wanted them to take continuous video for the whole first hour, with no magazines or videos or anything to help the time go by.  So, I took some ativan to relax and maybe take a little nap.  Then the tech found out that they needed only 1 minute at the beginning and 1 minute after an hour.  So he sent me back to the waiting room where I totally passed out.  :-) Then when he came to get me for the 1 hour video, he told me I could just lay there and snooze for the next half hour until the 1.5 hour mark. So, that was me...crashed out on the steel xray bed...but he got me a nice warm blanket and all was good! After that I had 1.5 hrs to kill so I went upstairs to get copies of my bloodwork from yesterday. I asked the lady if she knew of a nice quiet waiting room around somewhere (because the hospital was jam packed with the entire population of Tucson). She told me about a nice doctor's lounge over in the med school building that was just fabulous - great comfy chairs, some study stations and even a coffee shop.  SO much better than children climbing on walls! :-) When I went back for the 3 hr shots, the tech told me that everything had already passed through, so I was done and didn't need to have the 4 hr shot taken - yay! I have no idea how that happened, since we knew already that I have a very slow digestion time, plus narcotics really slow you down, but I'll take it!

From my bloodwork, it looks like there are several things that came back abnormal that indicate infection, dehydration and internal inflammation.  I still really think that the evil stent is still somewhere in my body.  I swear, I can feel it as it's moving around. I just wish it didn't hurt so much! I have my MRI on Saturday, so that should show it.  If not, there's always the EUS next Monday or the MRCP next Wed.

Here are 2 photos from the waiting area for nuclear medicine. What cracks me up is them telling us to chill-ax in one sign, then 2 feet away there's radiation all around you. UMC seems to be brilliant with their signs warning stupid people! I may have to make a montage  - like a photo diary - of all the "special" things and people I encounter along the way!