Still Looking for that Hidden Camera…

Have you ever had one of those moments where all you can do is won­der why no one is with you to see what you’re seeing?

Ya know, the kind where you look left…look right…and expect to find out that my girl Ellen Degeneres is watch­ing you on a hid­den camera?

Rep­re­sent­ing the rare and unusu­al, I expe­ri­ence these moments A LOT.

For exam­ple, when the 94823084^th doc­tor looks at you with a bewil­dered “I’ve nev­er seen THAT before!” expect­ing you to be a) shocked and b) some­what alarmed, and all you can think is “I won­der if I have time to grill my sweet pota­to for din­ner tonight?”

Over the years I have shared near­ly all of the “Bill­board Top 25” ridicu­lous moments, but…I have a con­fes­sion to make.

There is one moment…that may in fact be the very tip­py-top of the list, that I didn’t share.

One test from my good ol’ 2012 pil­grim­age to Mayo, that I decid­ed was just a wee bit too ridicu­lous to share.

(Except to my father, who laughed so hard in the wait­ing room, I felt the need to con­firm the pres­ence of his inhaler in his briefcase.)

I didn’t feel the need to share it, that is, until 4 years lat­er, the test that I thought I would nev­er ever ever ever have to think of again, was ordered by my doctor.

Let me assure you — I ini­tial­ly said no.

In fact, I believe I laughed as if it was a joke.

But my new doc­tor promised it would be super help­ful! and very diag­nos­tic! and the start to bet­ter food consumption!

And let’s be hon­est, the promise of eat­ing more than 10 things is like dan­gling a ten­nis ball in front of a retriev­er — absolute­ly impos­si­ble to ignore.

Now before we dive in fur­ther, I feel the need to pro­vide a disclaimer.

People…I have exten­sive gas­troin­testi­nal dys­motil­i­ty. In oth­er words, my GI sys­tem is all kinds of dys­func­tion­al from the very top to the very bot­tom. Over the years I have met with more doc­tors and had more GI tests than I can even begin to count, and as with most com­mon­ly repeat­ed life events, what once seemed weird quick­ly becomes just anoth­er day.

I say this, because today I’m intro­duc­ing you to the Anorec­tal Manometry…and that alone should give you a hint enough to know that if bath­room humor and being intro­duced to the inner work­ings of my colon is too much for you, allow me to sug­gest that you close the com­put­er, grab a green juice and go for a stroll. No ques­tions asked.

….

As I was saying.

So, the anorec­tal manom­e­try. So uncom­mon and unheard of, that Microsoft Word con­tin­ues to insist that I am try­ing to spell some­thing else.

As with most tests in the GI depart­ment, there is an ele­ment of prepa­ra­tion. This delight­ful lit­tle adven­ture involves not 1, but 2 ene­mas two hours pri­or to the test.

Noth­ing says “good morn­ing!” quite like a dou­ble ene­ma at 4:45 AM, my friends. NOTHING. (Also notable, you can save a full dol­lar by pur­chas­ing the ene­ma twin pack at Target!)

When you endure a GI test for the first time, you are bliss­ful­ly unaware. You head back into the sur­gi­cal suite com­plete­ly in the dark of just how this whole trans­ac­tion will occur.

The sec­ond time, how­ev­er? You seri­ous­ly ques­tion the san­i­ty of the extreme­ly chip­per nurse who comes to retrieve you from the wait­ing room.

(The first time I had this test, my extreme­ly attrac­tive male nurse told me he would step out­side while I dropped my pants. Oh how kind to step out of the room while I take off my yoga pants…and then come back into the room to very close­ly exam­ine my bow­el habits…)

After chang­ing into a gown, and hear­ing the req­ui­site “you’re too young to have a pace­mak­er!” and “but you look so healthy!” the show began when the nurse kind­ly instruct­ed me to hold onto the bed so she could check my anatomy.

Friends, when one is instruct­ed to brace with the bed, one should guess the check will involve more than “1 cheek, 2 cheek, hole, got it!”

All while telling me about her dar­ling grand­child, a nurse wear­ing bright red lip­stick checked my INTERNAL anato­my. So glad she made her­self up for the occasion.

While des­per­ate­ly try­ing to dis­tract myself from the sit­u­a­tion DOWN THERE, I decide it’s a genius idea to take stock of the items on the prep tray.

This just in: TERRIBLE IDEA.

The items include, but are not lim­it­ed to: 1 eigh­teen inch set of tub­ing in plas­tic wrap, 1 bag of bal­loons, and 1 extra large tube of KY Jelly.

[Braces bed with more for­ti­tude]

Short­ly there­after, afore­men­tioned 18 inch tube goes exact­ly where you are guess­ing it does. AND THEY LEAVE IT THERE.

At this point, my red lip­stick friend switch­es spots with anoth­er poor soul who has been rel­e­gat­ed to the world of the anorec­tal manometry….who pro­ceeds to lead me in a long series of rep­e­ti­tions of “SQUEEZE 2 3 4 5!” and “PUSH 2 3 4 5!”

Guys. I’m doing cal­is­then­ics with my RECTUM.

At this point, I again dare to look around for dis­trac­tion and notice that my red-lip­stick pal has her shiny gold-cased phone out, all aimed in the direc­tion of my extra­or­di­nar­i­ly bare bot­tom half. So I do the com­plete­ly log­i­cal thing and assume that she is tak­ing photos…until I real­ize she has the stop­watch fea­ture up and is using her gold-clad tele­phone to time my rec­tal cal­is­then­ics. I’m not sure which is more jarring.

At this point, you’re prob­a­bly think­ing “Ok, it has to be almost over, this can’t pos­si­bly get worse!” and I will admit, I was right there with you the first time.

Just when you are think­ing they must be wrap­ping up and about to send me on my mer­ry way, they instead whip out a giant syringe full of saline. Remem­ber that bal­loon from my perusal of the prep tray?

Yep.

Before I can even begin to men­tal­ly pre­pare myself for the next phase of this life alter­ing expe­ri­ence, 18 inch­es of tub­ing is removed, a bal­loon is attached to the bot­tom, and 18 inch­es is rein­sert­ed. Now I feel it’s impor­tant to note that I request­ed a fun­fet­ti bal­loon. If I am going to pro­duce a bal­loon from the inner reach­es of my colon, it had bet­ter say “Con­grat­u­la­tions” and be full of con­fet­ti. I do not think this is too much to ask.

I was denied.

Alas, the bal­loon was yel­low. Lame.

Once the decid­ed­ly non-con­fet­ti con­tain­ing bal­loon is no longer on the out­side of my body, the pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned syringe of saline decides to join the colon par­ty and they fill up the balloon.

They fill up a bal­loon. Inside my intes­tine. And then attach a rub­ber tube to it. And tie on a weight.

True. Sto­ry.

I am, at this point, instruct­ed to head to the attached bath­room for a more “nat­ur­al expe­ri­ence.” I am now com­plete­ly naked, with a flim­sy hos­pi­tal gown half cov­er­ing the front of my body and about 12 inch­es of rub­ber tub­ing and a weight hang­ing out of my back­side, attempt­ing to walk across the room to the bathroom.

Nev­er. Looked. Better.

I am firm­ly instruct­ed to drop said weight into the toi­let, sit, and let them know when I’m “in position.”

After I ner­vous­ly share that I am, in fact, in posi­tion, three words are yelled through the bath­room door:

“READY
SET
GO!”

At this point, my main objec­tive is push out the bal­loon. That is attached to a weight­ed tail. In my rectum.

It is absolute­ly cru­cial that I make sure you under­stand that this is a TIMED test. For a full two min­utes, like­ly timed on the shiny gold phone, my two newest pals are direct­ly out­side of the bath­room door yelling “GO LYDIA!!!!,” “PUSH!!!!! PUSH!!!!!!” and “YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!”

Peo­ple. I had bal­loon-poop­ing cheerleaders.

If only I brought pom-poms.

I am now sit­ting on a toi­let at Hop­kins, most­ly naked, with a weight­ed tail hang­ing out of me, lit­er­al­ly sweat­ing and red in the face when I hear a deject­ed “times up” from out­side the door.

Sooooo…

Not only did some­one stick a yel­low bal­loon into my rec­tum, but that yel­low bal­loon is now STUCK in my rec­tum. And see­ing as the yel­low bal­loon is attached to a weight­ed tail that ends in the toi­let, I am now also STUCK on the toilet.

Ummm….sooooo….

Appar­ent­ly my bestest red-lip­stick-clad pal drew the short straw of open­ing the door, where she then direct­ed me to lean for­ward while she “retrieved” the not at all con­grat­u­la­to­ry bal­loon. While unty­ing (yes, unty­ing) the bal­loon inside of my back­side, I receive a muf­fled, “Well I guess you know you failed that part!”

Yea.
Got it, thanks.

Sev­er­al weeks lat­er, when I had a fol­low-up appoint­ment with my doc­tor (who, I may remind you, had promised me all things diag­nos­tic! and help­ful! and more food!) I was quite thrilled to head to the patient rooms, and NOT the sur­gi­cal suite…but I sat with tight­ly crossed legs, just in case.

I lis­tened as the doc­tor start­ed read­ing off the dif­fer­ent num­bers and pres­sure read­ings and speed of my rec­tal cal­is­then­ics, wait­ing patient­ly for her to men­tion when I can go dive into some chips and sal­sa, and instead I hear;

“Well, what’s inter­est­ing is we don’t real­ly know what this means!”

Inter­est­ing.
Is that so.

In oth­er news, while fill­ing out the pay­ment por­tion of my not one, not two, but THREE day stool test (anoth­er part of the super help­ful! diag­nos­tic! more food! plan) I notice the cost of the test is about 6 times what I was told it would be. Think­ing there must be a mis­take, I call the diag­nos­tic com­pa­ny to inquire about the cost of the three day “box o’ my bow­els” resid­ing behind the spinach in my refrigerator.

A very kind, South­ern woman patient­ly explains to me that my insur­ance com­pa­ny decid­ed not to cov­er the test…but if I’m unable to pay the full price at this time, I can place it on layaway!

Lay­away.
For my stool sample.

Ellen? Are you there?!?