Endoscopy - Like Going to the Spa

Maybe in a few months, I may look back and think I was just crazy. At the moment, it seems like the most natural thing to me that today I enjoyed having an endoscopy.

About six months ago my new allergist did a blood test to find out if I'm allergic to gluten and wheat, in order to determine if that was the source of my life-long struggles with eczema. Some people are only allergic, and if you completely exclude gluten from your diet for a few years, there is the possibility of getting rid of the allergy. On the other hand, there are those with a gluten-intolerance that actually have something called "celiac's disease," a life-long intolerance in which gluten can destroy the villi in your stomach, causing you to be unable to absorb nutrients, resulting in weight loss, lack of energy, and many other problems. Once you find out you have a gluten allergy, which I do, the only way to diagnose if you actually have celiac's disease is to have a biopsy done via endoscopy. An endoscopy is when they stick a tube down your throat until it reaches your stomach. I guess there's a camera attached and they look around with a monitor while they take samples from your esophogus, intestines, and stomoach. Andrew wanted me to get this done while his mom is still staying with us before she leaves mid-June.

When I first arrived at the hospital, they put me on a bed and two really nice nurses attended to me. They pampered me with so many questions about me: "Are you allergic to latex? Do you have diabetes? Is it difficult to find your vein whenever they put an IV in you?" I liked all the attention. As they left the room, they stuck a clipboard at the base of my bed, brushing past my feet. Are they going to give me a foot massage too?

When they wheeled me into the room where they perform the ten minute endoscopy, I was met by another really friendly, warm nurse. She told me that they were going to put a sedative in through my IV. I might start feeling 'out of it' within a minute, some people feel it in 15 seconds. They said I might not fall asleep, but I would probably forget the whole thing.

The next thing I know, the really nice nurses are wheeling me out of the room. The procedure is done. I felt like I was a child again and had three moms taking care of me. Childhood memories in New Jersey flickered through my mind, the summer sun glaring through my windows, as I lay cacooned in my bed. The shrill, vibrating of the cicadas stirring me further from my sleep. "I feel so happy," I said to the nurse. "Is that just the medicine?"

As they transferred me into a wheelchair, they said I needed to go home and take a two hour nap and relax for the rest of the evening. Life could not have gotten better at that moment. The only thing I remember saying in my delirium was, "Wow, everyone's so nice to me, taking care of me, I feel like I've just been to a spa."