Last week I went into Maine Med. for an endoscopy, where they put a tube down your throat with a camera to look around in your stomach. I’ve been having pain in my stomach on and off since January and my doctor felt that five months was too long and we should take a little look-see into the bowels of my being.
When Cowboy and I were called into the prep room, the nurse asked him if he was family and he said “yes.” It was weird because it was the first time he’d said that. I felt this wave of total oh-my-God-ness that in a few short months he would be my family. As I was wheeled away and he gave me a kiss, I knew he would be there waiting for me and this filled me with a bittersweet feeling of love and fear, the gravity of someone really being there almost too much to bear.
But then the fun began. In what felt like no time at all I was wheeled back to Cowboy. What follows is what he says happened, but I don’t recall any of it.
Apparently as I was approaching, reclining casually on my stretcher, I called out “Hey” very cheerily, and even waved to him, as if we were just passing in the hall and everything was hunky-dory on my end. Then, before they’d even gotten my stretcher settled into my room, I began waxing poetic about what a good doctor I’d had and how nice he was and when the nurse agreed I then blurted out, “Yeah, I almost fainted when he just walked in the room!!!” Apparently Cowboy was imagining some young handsome doctor who would stroll in to give me my test results, captivating my heart once again post-op. Instead came a very nice middle-aged family man, who entered a little trepidatiously given my advance PR, which, according to Cowboy, was broadcast at a decibel level for the whole hospital to hear. The doctor talked to me very professionally about the procedure and showed me some pictures of my stomach and small intestine, and then, apparently, much to his and Cowboy’s shock, I grabbed the photos from him and demanded (again, at Broadway theatre house levels): “Is that poop?” while pointing to something brown in the photo (the inside of my intestine). Before he could answer I proclaimed “I haven’t been potty in weeks!” He mumbled something about my being welcome to come visit him in his office but instead I requested copies of the pictures, like I were suddenly an important consulting doctor. He looked totally confused by my authoritative tone and slithered out of the room as fast as he could. He came back a few minutes later with the photos, which he threw into the room as he ran past, hoping I wouldn’t talk to him anymore.
