Nursing a Dragon

Nurses are awesome. They are by far the best part of going to the hospital. Everything else pretty much sucks. But seriously, I think I just experienced the most painful thing of my life. I'm not gonna go into details, mostly to spare your stomachs but also because the thought of that pain makes me want to puke myself.

They had to give me a relaxant and some painkillers and I still was writhing in agony and could barely catch my breath. I think I even kicked the doctor and begged her to stop—"Stop-stop-stop-stop-stop!"—and breathed. The weird hose thingy was pretty quite hard against my IUD and I thought I was gonna have a baby and vomit and pass out and break my jaws. So, 60 hours without food, 12 hours of laxative purging and then 15 minutes excruciating pain and what's the verdict, "Wow, you have a very healthy colon. Very clean!"
Gee, thanks... I never would'a thunk! Are you still gonna try to tell me that I have Crohn's or Inflammatory Bowel Disease?

But see, that's where doctors and nurses are so wonderfully different. Nurses just do their very best to make the experience for the patient as pleasant and calm as possible, whereas doctors seem to feed off their clever discoveries, no matter how grim they are. What, do you want to find cancer in my colon, just so satisfy your need to prove yourself smart? No, the doctor was great as well, but I could tell she really wanted to get the procedure over with, as did I. And there was the sweet nurse, rubbing my shoulder gently the whole time and saying sweetly, "It's okay, it's okay."

Apparently many people are put to sleep for this procedure, or at least have twilight anesthesia. I've been reading some forums from patients from various countries who were concerned about the cost of the sedation and who had chosen to opt out. They were greeted with startled looks from their doctors and warnings of the pain. Uhm... sedation wasn't even an option for me today. Oh well, it's all over, and the nurse was wonderful. That's the second nurse at St. Göran's hospital who helped me immensely this year. If I can get a hold of their names, I'm going to write them Thank You cards. Haha, sometimes I'm such a child. But I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

Well now my stomach and intestines are roaring. I feel like a dragon is going to jump out of my middle. It's scary and raises a lot of eyebrows from people sitting across the table from me, i.e. Johannes, who says it sounds like an angry cat. Meanwhile I think it's morphed into a t-rex looking for food.

Oh right, FOOD! I was able to eat again this afternoon, after 60 hours of liquids... Oh, food Glorious food! Hot, fresh veggie sandwiches straight from the oven. Avocado, arugula, tomato, lettuce, feta cheese warmed and with some pesto and dijon mustard. Mmmm. I'm gonna see if I can settle the dragon in my gut with some dinner and a movie. Lazy night.

Thanks, dear nurse from St. Görans, you were the highlight of my hospital experience!