Swallowing and coughing

I like talking to friends.  That's what makes this stage of healing particularly difficult.  I feel reasonably well  in general but can get short of breath quickly.  Talking, for whatever the various reasons, brings on the cough.  Last night I tried Skype with Alice and the conversation reverted to her talking and me typing... sort of a hybrid, which worked quite well except that I am a slow typist.

So days are beginning to be filled with solitary activities, reading, writing and wrestling with the food pump.  I think I mentioned that 12 hours a day I need to have a latte-colored liquid pumping into my J-tube, named for it's direct connection to the jejunum.  This fluid is food without the fun.  It is supposed to be super duper healthy, physically rejuvenating, and it is vegetarian.  But this nutritional trickle has a physical similarity to anxiety.  It feels like butterflies in the stomach sometimes.  I think I am anxious when I am really just experiencing the symptoms of anxiety.  Ok, there may be some real anxiety thrown in there too;  I know you are thinking that.  But I am always more anxious with the machine on.

I am also sipping clear liquids.  It's not lasagna, but taste and swallow are not completely foreign concepts.  Excited to graduate to more complex foods soon.

Speaking of swallowing, I want to go back and tell of the "swallow study" I mentioned in an earlier post. I referred to it as "drinking a radioactive milkshake" to make sure there were no leaks at the new anatomy junction.

All trips to radiology start with a thrilling bed ride, usually chauffeured  by a dude with a soul patch who lives in Rockford.  The man corners that bed through corridors like he takes pride in his work! Once parked at the St.Mary's radiology department you may be offered a heated blanket while you wait.  I always wait in the same place and I recognize the same faces working at the desk but the room I go into looks completely different every time.  Clearly, there are multiple rooms, each with special gear but I am always surprised to discover a completely different environment.

This particular lab right away stood out as a place where fashion mattered.  I concluded that these people must have intentionally decided that they would be the hippest department in the hospital. The atmosphere and attitude was very groovy and each of 3, tall attractive assistants was wearing, brightly colored, lead-lined, mod "club-wear".   They could step out of the lab, pick up guitars and we'd all be thinking, "yeah!".  I commented on all the different colors (each outfit was one solid, color with black accent trim) and they seemed pleased that I noticed. I was told there were 7 colors in all, none the same.

They had me stand on a platform along with expensive-looking machinery with great curved arms pointing at and around me.  The beverage they handed to me was in a styrofoam cup and looked more like apple juice than milkshake.  I guess the "radioactive milkshake" idea was just hyperbole on my part (sorry).  I was told that it did not taste good by any stretch, in fact,  pretty much he opposite of good.  It was explained to me that a series of x-rays would scan from top to bottom and track the radioactive liquid as it slid down my throat.

Just then, a young man with perfect hair slid into a plexiglass DJ booth and told me he would be spinning the discs all night long for my dancing pleasure... or maybe it was something to the effect that he would be conducting the scan.  He advised me to take small sips.

Now I'm a gulper (or I used to be anyway) so small is relative.  Plus, for a week I'd been practicing forced non-swallowing.  A tiny damp sponge had been the only wet thing that passed my lips.  So out of the gate with my first swallow, using my new food delivery apparatus, I would be drinking something that tasted terrible in an amount that seemed to matter.  I was terrified!  When asked if I had any questions, I managed, "What if I throw up?".  He told me that that never happens.  That actually offered me some relief.

The DJ donned some fashion-forward frames and remarked, "I've got to protect the merchandise." On cue, I sipped a medium-small amount, swallowed and almost immediately spewed liquid down my hospital gown and began coughing.  This was a bad start! The good news is that I had a much better idea of how swallowing was going to work in this tiny new throat.  The next swallow scan seemed to please them.  The liquid went in one direction.  They had me turn sideways and do it again.  The beverage tasted like tar-flavored cough syrup but It would be the last sip.  Or would it?  They had me relax on the bed with hot blankets over me while they examined the results.

As it turned out the liquid seemed to flow nicely down the front of my gullet but they wanted to make sure about the back as well.  This time, back on the platform, the DJ pulled on a joystick and the whole platform and machine tilted back at an angle.  That last sip also seemed to work well,  I asked for a swish of water to get the taste out of my mouth.

While we waited for the Rockford soul-patch dude to arrive to bring me back to my room, I asked the woman in the magenta lead-lined dress if she could tell me my results.  No, she couldn't, but being cool, she read me the note on the outside of the folder: "Standard expectation".

"What do you think that means?", she queried in a knowing way.

So the swallow tube worked then and now it is broken.  Healing can be a bitch!

Readers, for me writing this tale has timed out nicely.  My food pump is beeping, which means it has dispensed all its nutrition.  I am untethered for another 12 hours!  I'm going to go sip some cran-grape and see if I'm regular.