Moose in the Kitchen

The good news is, I don’t have an alien gestating in my abdomen. The bad news is, I only know this because no goopy green creature burst through my stomach wall to swallow the technician’s head in one slurping gulp. Apparently, when you have an ultrasound, you don’t actually find out what’s going on. They just smear your stomach with goo, stick what feels like a baseball bat someplace unmentionable, bludgeon your ovaries a bit, and then tell you the doctor will contact you…eventually.

Kaiser does not know the meaning of the term “immediate gratification”.

I almost skipped the appointment entirely. My kidney has been dancing the Russian hornpipe on my small intestine for the past few months and I must have made it sound sufficiently dire because the nurse scheduled an ultrasound. My stomach carried on, rising to a fevered pitch while we were in Ohio, a pitch that actually required application of a Tylenol (how DO I march so valiantly on?) and then stopped abruptly. My stomach has behaved admirably ever since and I started to feel like a fraud. So, when trying to decide if I should go to my appointment this morning, I let my hypochondria and my laziness duke it out, tempered not at all by my higher reasoning. (My higher reasoning can be reliably trampled by emotion, hormones, and Reese’s peanut butter cups.) Hypochondria: Perhaps I am DYING. Laziness: Since you’re dying, wouldn’t you rather spend your remaining time on the couch rather than trekking across town to hang out with annoyed nurses and old people? Higher reasoning: Um, guys? Guys? HEY, GUYS!

I finally called the advice nurse (hypochondria:1, laziness: 0) and she told me to shut up and get in my car to go to the appointment already. “But it’s just stress,” I said authoritatively. The nurse paused for a rather stinging moment, one that told me quite clearly what she thought of my authority. “Or…” she paused again. “Or maybe it’s an ovarian cyst. Or endometriosis. Or IMMINENT DEATH.” (That was a paraphrase.) (Actually, she was very nice and didn’t mention death once.)

So, yeah. I went. I got prodded. And was rewarded with nothing but goo on my shirt. So now I’m curious. What’s IN there? Is something wrong? Or is my spleen just a very talented Bavarian dancer? I’ll find out tomorrow or next week. Unless there really IS an alien in my stomach and it eats me before the doctor calls. In which case, the results of my ultrasound are probably moot.

In other news, today is the start of National Blog Posting Month. Which explains the rambling saga of my entirely uneventful doctor’s appointment. The only other option was to describe what happened when I brushed my teeth last night after eating way too many starburst. I thought abdominal goo was the better option. So, yes. I’m joining all the other fine folks at NaBloPoMo and posting here every blessed day of November. I promise nothing. Except to avoid a repeat of last year’s belly button haiku incident.

Related posts:

1. Yet Another Reason to Fear November
2. Nope, Still Boring
3. The Crash, It Was Resounding
4. Pant, Pant…PANT
5. It’s No Roast Beast, But It’ll Do