#108 Having an endoscopy

I can’t believe I’ve written over 100 posts without including a picture of my insides. Well, I’m going to rectify that right now. Above is a cute shot of my oesophagus.

I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous about letting someone stick a tube into me though not as nervous as I would have been if they were sticking it in the other end.

Perhaps it was this nervousness or my poor eyesight which led me to leave the piece of paper from my doctor requesting the procedure at home. Instead I took a prescription for a drug beginning with E so I assumed that the terrible handwriting said Endoscopy.

Twenty minutes later, I’d walked home to get the correct piece of paper and we were in the waiting room.

The doctor  in charge of the procedure was very nice and explained everything that was going to happen, slowly and patiently.

They asked me to hold a small plastic tube between my teeth and then injected 5mg of midazolan.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the comfy chair in the waiting room and asking my wife, in Portuguese, whether it was all over. The whole procedure had only taken five minutes and the xilocaina spray they had asked me to swallow must have worked because I felt no discomfort at all.

It turns out that one of the uses of midazolan is that decreases anxiety and it was truly wonderful. I sat in another comfy in an area the clinic has for patients to avail themselves of free coffee and biscuits and it was the comfiest chair in the world. The coffee was the best coffee in the world and the biscuits were just amazing.

The effects of the midazolan were so great that I would be quite happy to go and have an endoscopy every week.

Apparently I have erosive esophogitis and erosive gastritis which, as well as taking the pills the doctor prescribed, involves me eating smaller, more-frequent meals, avoiding irritating foods, especially those that are spicy, acidic, fried or fatty and, worst of all, avoiding alcohol.

At least I managed to avoid writing for a while.