I never expected to have health problems at this age. I guess reflux is a fairly common problem or seems to be based on the the number of ads I see for medications in the Prilosec family these days. My esophageal spasms and reflux are minor compared to what other people are dealing with, but when I have an "episode" as I like to call them I experience excruciating chest pain that nothing can reverse. We used to make fun of my dad because he kept a bottle of Pepto Bismol next to the chair and would take swigs from it. Now I'm downing Tums like they are Flintstones tasty vitamins and waiting for them to kick in so I can breathe again.
To rule out problems caused by the bacteria H. pylori, my dad suggested that I get tested. My doctor was happy to oblige and ordered up the test. At that point I was unaware of the requirements. It wasn't until I arrived to the lab and was handed a sterile plastic cup that I began to have some second thoughts about this test. It required a stool sample. The girl at the counter set down the phone long enough to hand me the cup and tell me, "Stool sample only, no urine. If you can get it to the lab within 1 hour then you don't need to freeze it. If it will be longer than an hour, freeze the sample and bring it in." And then she was back to making plans for the night in very hushed tones.
I left the clinic. Simple enough I thought. Just need to wait for the urge and then seal it up. My doubts crept in an hour later as I collected my sample. How much constitutes a sample? Will they think I'm strange if this is too full? And then, what was I going to transport the sample in? I couldn't put it in the freezer just like that, the clear plastic container next to my box of vegetarian chicken patties. I dug through my collection of bags looking for something nondescript. I found nothing. I settled on a Wendy's bag and just had to let go of the whole situation. There it sits, ready for transport.
So what's in your freezer?
March Review & April Preview
3 weeks ago
Well, Ms. Foster, I was tickled pink to find you blogulating. However. Then you had to start talking about bagging up stool samples. Then I started to get some esophogeal spasms. Then somebody suggested I should see a docor. Then the doctor suggested...
ReplyDeleteI have had dog vomit in my freezer.I have also had an entire freezer full of human breast milk. When I was little, whenever our cat would kill a bird or mouse and bring it to us, or if a baby bird had fallen out of a nest and died, my mom or dad or sister would put it in a little box- usually a gold cardboard jewelry box, but sometimes a plastic margarine container and put it in the freezer until we could dig a grave for it. I cannot tell you the number of times I opened the freezer to get a popsicle saw the gold box, shuddered and closed the freezer. I still get the chills whenever I see Imperial margarine at the store, or those gold jewelry boxes.
ReplyDeleteI still have a bag of breastmilk, my own, at the back of my freezer along with a frozen "araña de Rincón" or the sometimes deadly recluse spider that lurks in dark corners or behind works of art here in Chile. I don´t know if I regard my "full fat" milk as a memorial or a gravestone or just a work of art, a kind of sculpture which celebrates one of the best moments of my life. In any case, I always considered it "liquid gold," and it´s probably time to move on since Sofia, my youngest is almost 6 and pretty happy with warm non-fat cow´s milk out of a box. The spider, the little bastard, is there, in a seperate corner of course, because he deserved it.
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