Follow-up

I know you have all been anxiously waiting to hear about my day.  We got to the hospital about 11:00.  Jane, John and I chatted for an hour or so before going to the next waiting room.  There were five of us wearing stylish, open back hospital gowns attached to IVs. John stayed and chatted with all the patients. In addition to being Jane's husband, he is the pastor and quite outgoing - he already knew some of the other patients from doing pastor things and quite enjoyed his day. He left to run a few errands and I entertained Jane by reading jokes from Reader's Digest. Jane went in, the staff changed and suddenly I was left all by myself. I highly recommend doing medical tests with a friend - it really helps the time fly. Then it was my turn. I was very quick and got the all clear. 46 hours of fasting for 15 minutes of testing. John returned and we headed home about 4:30. By the time I got home I was starting to feel uncomfortable.  Bending over hurt and I had to undo my pants. The pain got worse and my stomach was rock hard. They warned there might be a little bloating but this was way more than expected. They recommend a hot bath or walking to relieve the pressure. It takes so long to fill our jacuzzi I decided against that and going for a real walk after 2 days of not eating didn't appeal to me either so I wandered around the house.  Here is a picture so you can see how big my stomach got and another shot 3 hours later when things were almost back to normal. My flash wouldn't turn off and this is my first attempt at self-portraits so excuse the poor quality.

I wasn't allowed to eat until 7:30 and believe me I didn't want to. Jello made my nauseous. I am the only person I know that had this reaction to a colonoscopy so don't let it scare you if you haven't gone. Everyone else I have talked to came out and had a huge meal right away.  I had yogourt at 7:30 followed by scrambled eggs a little while later. My stomach growled louder than the explosions in the war movie Connor was watching. I am back to normal this morning.

This has made me think about those people who experiment drinking pop and mentos. You tube has lots of sample videos if you have never heard of this before but they are all quite long and some quite graphic. Basically the pitted surface of the mentos and the pop create an explosion of carbon dioxide in your stomach and produce bloating, making you look pregnant in a matter of minutes.  Why do people do this? I have no idea. Judging from what I went through last night it has got to be incredibly painful as well as downright ugly.