Hi, my name is Kristie, and I am a heartburn sufferer. Not the kind of heartburn where you eat spicy food and then have to take some Tums and all is right in the world. More the kind where I am not eating or doing anything out of the ordinary and then WHAM, my esophagus catches fire and my nose starts to run and I would swallow the blood of a virgin if I thought it would cool the pain.
It started in college, when I drank a lot of rum and cola. The rum was as palatable as industrial waste, only less expensive, so it never surprised me when it stripped the lining from my digestive tract. I would just sweat excessively for a few minutes, drink a bottle of Pepto and resume drinking. I called it “The Pink Rally.”
When I started dating my husband (whose was, at the time, working in internal medicine),he suggested that perhaps chasing every drink or meal with pink drank wasn’t ideal. He prescribed me Nexium. Oh holy night, that stuff was fantastic. No more heartburn, regardless of my overconsumption of buffalo wings and boxed wine (after college, I eschewed rum for a classier drink). I even made it through pregnancy without heartburn, which I would have never thought possible.
But recently? Recently my heartburn has been kicking my ass. I have been taking my Nexium, plus a slew of other antacids, and still feeling like the fire within is more literal and less figurative. I got my first bout of serious gastritis on Easter, and have had it five or six times since then. It’s painful and leaves me doubled over on the floor for hours at a time, while the baby tries to insert various small toys into my nose and ears.
Finally, I scheduled a GI consult. It takes MONTHS to get in to see a GI specialist. I’m assuming there just aren’t enough doctors willing to deal with digestive material, and I get that. But what if it were something serious, and my stomach exploded during the wait time? What then? My appointment, after a looooong wait, was today.
Basically, she just took my history and scheduled me for tests. What tests? ALL OF THE TESTS. She wants me to deep throat a camera, while a different camera gets jammed up my ass. Double penetration, no hot dudes, and I will not be paid for my performance. What the hell?!
What’s more, she sent home some Informative Pamphlets for me to understand the sheer number of violations that will be occurring to my person during a 24 hour period. This is my understanding of how it works:
Step 1: Go to pharmacy and pick up a whole bunch of medications, all of which are related to your butt, and the 22 year old male pharmacy tech knows damned well that they’re all related to your butt.
Step 2: Go home and prepare a foul-smelling liquid. Refrigerate the liquid, then clean up after yourself without the assistance of certified nursing assistants.
Step 3: Don’t eat anything for 24 hours. Nothing. No food, despite the fact that you will still be required to maintain the stamina needed to chase a 13 month old terrorist around the house. Drink clear liquids, though. Lots of them. Why? In preparation for Step 5.
Step 4: Drink the repulsive brew you previously prepared, and take some pills to also assist in Step 5.
Step 5: Your butt falls off. If you vomit the foul-smelling fluid, you’ll have to drink more, lest parts of your butt remain attached to your body and the whole test is ruined.
Step 6: Go to the hospital and allow them to place an IV catheter, even though you are mortally afraid of needles.
Step 7: Receive medications through the IV to (I swear I’m not making this up) make sure you don’t remember what they do to you while you’re in there. Because you’ll remain awake for the procedures, but God forbid you be able to tell the rest of the world or an attorney what actually happened.
Step 8: Double Penetration (don’t worry—if you can’t remember, it didn’t happen! Drunk rules.)
Step 9: The pictures are posted on the internet for Japanese businessmen to bid on (this part is just conjecture, because it wasn’t listed in the Helpful Pamphlet, but let’s be totally real—it’s happening)
Obviously, I’m super excited. Except for that I’ve already seen Indecent Proposal, and I believe that protocol is that if you’re going to get penetrated by a stranger, it should result in a check for one million dollars. And if you’re going to get double penetrated, then it should definitely be for two million dollars. I would be willing to accept 1.5 million, since the second is only oral, but shouldn’t a girl have some kind of standards?
FML