Radioactive scrambled eggs? Yes please, I’m starving!

To continue this wonderful journey I’m on trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with my stomach, I’ve gone from drinking cardboard flavored vanilla smoothies to now munching on radioactive scrambled eggs.

This glorious test that has me shoving my face with a contaminated egg sandwich is called a gastric emptying scan. It takes a total of 4 hours (ugh…) as they take an x-ray of my stomach every hour or so to see how my body is digesting the culinary delight I just ate.

Hour 0-1

The sandwich itself wasn’t that bad, flavor wise. They mix the radioactive material with egg beaters and microwave it and they put the final product on plain white bread. Since I hadn’t eaten since my 7PM apps at 29 Newbury the night before and it was 8:30AM, I was starving. But first I awkwardly pulled out my iPhone and asked if I could take a picture for my blog. The question got a chuckle as expected and was given the ok.

After the little photo shoot, I dove into the first bite and immediately thought that the heat of the eggs was intentional to drown out the potential for noticing any funk that the radioactive materials may have caused. Then after the first bite and my satisfaction of being able to eat again, I noticed that the eggs were oddly sweet. After closer inspection, I noticed that there was jelly on the inside of each slide of white bread. I inquired about it and my buddy Andrew told me the reasoning for this was that the study wanted you to have “a complete meal” so the bread gave the carbs, the eggs protein and the jelly was the sugar.

I had a total of 10 minutes to finish the sandwich and a small glass of water and being an overachiever I ate it in 4 minutes. To be completely honest, I thought I was going at a somewhat leisurely pace so I was surprised at the quick turnaround. My grandma is right, I do eat really fast!! But Andrew then told me that his fastest was a big dude that finished it off in 1 minute! The thought of that makes me feel sick, but yet it makes me feel like he should be on the next episode of Man vs. Food with that pace.

After I finished the sandwich and the glass of water, I had about two steps to take to be smack dap in front of an x-ray machine. I stood in front of the upright machine and watched as the screen showed a little blob of white on a black screen. I was informed that blob was my stomach filled with the eggy goodness. I’m shocked at how quickly everything moves from your mouth into your stomach! The actual screen output was anti-climactic because I was used to the cool visual that I was able to see with the Barium swallow where I could literally see my internal organs, and this one reminded me of an inverted etch-a-sketch. After about 30 seconds the first x-ray was done and I had to turn around with my back against the machine for another x-ray to be taken.

I’m keeping my hopes up that as things start to digest the image will look cooler. Andrew mentioned that it would start to show the eggs winding through my intestines, so that should be interesting…

Hour 1-2

Andrew came to grab me for my second round of scans. The overall process was the same and boring. I was able to see two distinct areas of white blob and apparently that meant that things were moving out of the “J” shaped stomach of mine into the small intestines.

When I was in there I inquired about the massive tube that was coming out of the ceiling into the room. Andrew told me that it was there for those who come into the room for lung related scans. These people get radioactive gas pumped into their lungs to monitor the functionality of the lung pre transplant, etc. Some of these people come in from other parts of the hospital a little drugged up for various reasons and freak out a bit when they have the mask on their face. In the process of the freak out, they will sometimes rip the mask off their face and the radioactive gas then goes out into the room and the big tube from the wall sucks the gas out of the room to avoid contaminating those in the room.

Scan #2 done, one more hour of waiting until the next photo shoot begins…

Hour 2-4

So, nothing exciting and no new learnings during the next shoot. The one thing that I did find out was that this process would take a bit longer than initially expected. So much for being able to get back to work at a reasonable hour. I’m sitting in the waiting room like a cool kid on her laptop doing work, listening to music and watching some hulu to make the time pass.

There are so many random people coming in and out for different procedures. I’ve had a 3-year-old screamer who was watching a Disney movie on his parent’s iPad before he got outraged and threw the iPad across the room. That was a treat. And now as I sit here, I have a mother daughter team and two friends chatting nonstop about the wonders of Weight Watchers. Can’t wait to see what the rest of this two hour wait brings by way of people watching…P.S. my stomach is growling like crazy!

Hour 4 and beyond

I had a new person for my last round of scans. The one minute on each side went quietly and quickly. I oddly found myself missing my buddy Andrew. I had to wait for a few minutes for the docs to check and make sure that my images are clear enough to review before I was given the OK to go home…and EAT!

Where to go now? It won’t be a fine dining experience, at this point, I’m thinking a sub from Subway might do the trick! Don’t judge, that veggie sub with extra pickles always has a way of hitting the spot. But who knows, I may be hit with a craving for something more exciting by the time I get to my car.

Radioactivity all digested, over and out!