Today I went to my next stomach appointment and it wasn't pretty. Just before i went on NYC trip #2 (post to come), I had met again with my stomch doc who then pawned me of to do 2 more sets of tests from other doctors. I'm seriously starting to feel like a pinball now!

This round of testing is a very popular medical procedure for people with any stomach issues. The Barium Swallow is a procedure where you drink radioactive barium and they watch as it passes through your digestive tract. What are they looking for? Not sure really, but let's hope they know! :P

The best part about it was the phototaking. It honestly felt like a photoshoot! Here i am standing half naked in my hospital gown and the radiologist is saying to me: "OK, so move slowly to your side.. slooowly.. a little more.. that's it! hold our breath and freeze! don't move! that was GREAT! Now i'm going to move this to your back and and i want you to shift your weight and begin to drink this (passes more vile barium liquid).. drink faster! faster! big swallows! That's it.. that's it... GREAT!"

Man it was hilarious. I have to say I felt like the model rather than the agency/client behind watching the model do all this stuff. heh. Let's hope the pictures turn out well.. however, i think they could have used halogen rather than fluorescent flicking lighting, and they didn't take as many shots of my right side (which is clearly my better side). We'll see when the results come in next week.

Anyway, the bad part was about 2 hrs later I started getting stabbing stomach pains. This happened while at work and wouldn't go away. I called the clinic again and the technician assured me that it wasn't the barium. When i called them 2 hrs after that saying that the pain is still prevalent they said they were not qualified to give me any more advice and go see my GP.

Hrm. So i haven't had anything to eat since the night before, only drinking barium this morning (and a ton of fluid after to help flush it out). I wonder what else it could be.. Geeze. Anyway, it got to a point where i couldn't walk and i ended up leaving work to get myself checked out. SBF told me it could be my appendix, would would NOT be good! Thankfully after getting it checked out it wasn't that but just my sensitive intestines reacting to this shit. Not a suprise, given i drank a whole pile of that crap and i've had a relatively clean system for the past 4-5 months.

Anyway, i have my next set of tests next week. Let's hope they aren't as bad as this experience. It's almost been 10 months since i first came to the doctor telling them about my problems, and so far all tests are negative. High five to the conventional medical system!

Take care,

RE

"eat drink and be merry"

On the first week of March i went on a business trip to Chicago! It was for a promo marketing conference, with speakers talking about the latest and greatest in promotions, trends and an award show for the best promo ads in 2004. I went down with another coworker, who luckily has a client in the US and travels often and could direct me on the way there.

I don't fly often, so each time I always feel like an amateur or a non-flyer. I have no idea where I'm going or what steps i need to take to ensure it's a painless trip over the border. Perhaps it's becuase there's always someone there to do all the thinking that my brain shuts off :).

Anyhoo, the conference had some interesting things to say that i won't bother to write about. Here's what sums it up:

1) ALL ABOUT BIG PROMOS! BIG MONEY! HUGE BUZZ AND EXCITEMENT!
2) ALL ABOUT ONLINE/INTERACTIVE MARKETING!
3) ALL ABOUT EMBRACING AND JUMPING ON THE EMERGING 3RD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY (mobile wireless, multimedia etc.)

Good times. There were a few sleepers though, and man, it was tough to stay a float. It was intro to anthropology all over again! :).

It was actually quite tiring because I had to do some work while I was at the conference. I had my laptop and did work in between some of the speakers/breaks, as well as at night. Luckily, I did get a chance to head out to town and check out some of the shops, where I got my sister a really swanky white bag from a department store call “lord and taylor.” On one of the nights the president came down to hang out with us and we skipped one of the events to have a wicked dinner at this place called Japonais. We had a tapas style appetizer dinner, with incredible sushi, kobe beef and homemade crab cakes.

For those of you asking, yes, I went and tried to Kobe Beef! I’m not a beef eater, and in fact I haven’t had beef since I can remember. But I just had to for this one, b/c Japanese Kobe beef is allegedly the most decadent of all beefs, where the cows are treated like gold (massaged every day, fed top foods, etc). It wasn’t bad :), and definitely not worth $65! It was an experience to remember and I can say that I’ve had it now.

Afterwards, we hit this local blues bar called Kingson Mines. It was a great local venue that supports the blues scene, playing until 4AM each night! There are 2 stages so literally it’s non-stop music. The first band I saw was more of the funky g-love /james brown style, who were O.K. The sax player was great though, walking around and playing for the dancing couples (missing you SBF!). The second band was more traditional Colin James / upbeat wanking blues guitar solos / slide guitar bustin' style, ripping up a storm! It was great to lay back and relax, taking a break from all the business jargon and suits. I made it until about 1AM and had to go since I had to hit the conferce at 8:15AM the next day! Needless to say, the next morning’s workshops was mere pigments of my imagination now!

Overall the trip was great. Expensing everything made it better. It was good to get away from work (although not really) and spend some time in the US. I have some pictures but the rogers website that I usually host the pictures on has suddenly been deactivated and changed to a new yahoo/rogers server! So all my pictures are gone.. I have to set it all up again and cross reference them all on this blog.. yeah right I’m doing that! Bah.

Take care,

RE

“eat drink and be merry