I got the hospital bus out there and enjoyed the ride through leafy Epsom suburbs with their imposing villas and bungalows. I forget there are other suburbs out there.
People waiting for their X-rays looked quite incapacitated and I can be thankful that I don't have broken bones, touch wood. When I got to the room where they were doing the X-ray there were these huge machines and four women - a radiologist, a radiographer, the speech language therapist and a student who was busy spreading what I thought was cream cheese on a piece of whole meal bread. Yum, I thought, I like cream cheese.
They positioned me on the machine and showed me where to hang on and then gave me a chalky strawberry-flavoured barium drink to sip. I did what I was told and took some cautious sips. So far so good. Then someone said to me " Do you always gulp your drink of water like this?"
"Well ", I said, " I did what I was told. A sip is a sip and a gulp is a gulp". So ended up telling myself to have a big gulp of barium drink which slipped down alright.
Then it was on to the bread and biscuit, both with cream cheese topping. Yuk, it was barium paste and my cautious mouthful made me gag of course. The biscuit was better as I turned it upside down and fooled myself into taking a bigger bite. It didn't slip down easily though and it looks as though solid food is not getting on its way to the stomach as fast as before. They are going to come round with the CD and report and discuss it with me some time.
So that was that little procedure.
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