Cheery Monologues 
By Sean Wilkinson

As readers of this column may know, I have spent the last five months or so under the impression that I may or may not have an ulcer. The stars finally aligned for me (doctors taking new patients, tests scheduled and completed, medical benefits started at the new job) and I have the answer I’ve been waiting for.
I knew there was something wrong down there. It’s not just sour stomach when it wakes you up at two o’clock in the morning with a pain so bad it makes you curse, break into cold sweats and shivers, double over on the bathroom floor, and eventually pass out from exhaustion – the only relief for the pain coming when you wake up a few hours later.

My answer would come from a procedure known as an esophagogastroduodenoscopy. It makes me giggle to say that word out loud. I feel smart. But esophagogastroduodenoscopy is just a fancy word for “doctor shoving a thick tube down your throat into which he inserts cameras, pincers, and other wacky stuff.”

The procedure was odd. First, an older attending nurse put an IV in, and much to our shared dismay, she had to try twice. She made a big fuss over how easy it was going to be. She kept smacking the big vein on the back of my hand: “Oh yeah… Look at that big boy… That’s gonna be a good ‘un… Ooohhhh yeah…” Smack, smack, smack. Kind of creepy, like she really would rather be cooking up some junk for me.

She shoved the oversize needle in, which guided in a catheter tube for IV delivery. Then she couldn’t get blood out of it. She started to quake. Beads of sweat formed at her silvery temples: “I don’t know what’s wrong!” (Shoving saline forcefully into my vein and trying in vain to pull blood out.) “I never have this problem!” (Shove, pull, shove, pull.) “Am I hurting you?”

“Nice of you to ask, but no. I can’t feel anything past the Lidocaine.” She had numbed the back of my hand with a local anesthetic. 

She finally got an IV in the other hand, apologizing profusely. I got the feeling she was apologizing more for her damaged pride than for my prodded and poked veins. 

I was walked into the operating room and told to lay down on a gurney. I was given more Lidocaine, this time to gargle “for as long as I could,” according to the new, cute attending nurse. Sounds like a challenge to me. I thoroughly impressed the hot nurse with my extendo-gargle abilities, raising my eyebrows in enthusiasm, as if to say, “Check out this gargle action.” She made an indication that either I was a very talented gargler or she was sick of watching me gargle (or both), so I spit the stuff into the little, purple, crescent puke bucket she was holding out for me. I spit with a bit too much gusto, spraying half of it onto my lap. Great. Glad I could continue to impress the nurse. Glad they let me wear my own pants in here. 

Then, Hot Nurse proceeded to tell me all I had to do was bite down on the mouthpiece and relax. “All you have to worry about is not swallowing… Just drool! I’ll take care of it from there,” she said with a smile, indicating a towel in her hand. Wonderful. Just what you want an attractive female to be doing while you’re semi-conscious: wiping drool from your chin.

I remember the first shot of whatever they gave me going in the IV. It started taking effect quickly. I expressed that sentiment to the nurse.

“Wowww… this takes ffectquick, huhrr?” 

The next thing I remember is biting down on the mouthpiece and watching the doctor start sliding the long, black, snaky endoscope down my throat. I didn’t gag. I applauded myself for that. Score one for Sean impressing Hot Nurse.

That’s when I started making demands, cocksure with my new-found gag-suppressing abilities on display. I asked for my glasses so I could watch the video screen. Keep in mind, the mouthpiece holding my jaws apart made talking nearly impossible. 

“Cuh I hah muh guhshesh? I wha wash tuh viggo screeh.”

Then I demanded that the doctor tell me everything he was doing. 

“Whasdat? Wha yoo doong? Whasdat?”

“This is your esophagus. This is your duodenum. This is your stomach. I don’t see any ulcers in here.”

“Ngo usshah?! Ahh oo shuh?”

“Yes, I’m sure. There’s some mild gastritis here.”

“Ngo ussah?”

“No ulcer.”

I think I was disappointed at the time. I think I wanted a big, bad, red ulcer staring me down from the video screen. But looking back days later (which, by the way, is the only way I have any recall of these events – this all came back to me in pieces over the course of the next 48 hours) I’m glad there is no ulcer.

I remember Hot Nurse asking me how it was as she wheeled me out to the little curtained-off area where I would sleep off the dope.

“Psht. Getting my wisdom teeth out was worse.”

She laughed. At that time, I thought it was because I was funny. Looking back, it’s probably because I was a babbling, drooling weirdo who had just spit Lidocaine all over himself, was under sedation, had had a tube shoved down his throat, was making demands of the doctor, and was now trying to play it cool.

At least maybe I can drink coffee again.