Loopogram

Today started ok, the sun was shining and I woke up feeling more positive than yesterday.
After shopping in Aldi where we saw the very lovely Julie & her very big baby bump we came home for a cuppa and then went off to MRI for "water soluble contrast enema" - lovely.

I got to the X-ray department and was told to get undressed and into a gown and then I'd be taken through to have dye injected into my conduit.

Oh ohhhh.  I'd been sent the wrong letter and this was THE dreaded Loopogram the transplant surgeon mentioned he wanted me to have.   The same loopogram test that I'd had done once before back in the late 1990's.  The whole experience was horrendous.

A loopogram is a to see why a stoma isn't working as it should.  A stoma is a small piece of ileum brought to the skins surface and where urine/faeces - in my case urine - leaves the body.  My stomas, luckily, was working beautifully but my transplant surgeon wanted to know how long the urethra was from my kidneys to my stoma as he needed this information prior to a transplant being done.

'Be brave' my inner voice whispered and in I went.
I lay on the bed and the radiologist removed my bag.  Seconds later I was already thinking about giving up being brave.  Sod being brave.  Then she inserted her little finger into my stoma my bottom lip started to wobble!  God I am a wuss.
Unfortunately I saw the catheter tube she wanted to insert into my stoma and it may as well have been a bleedin hosepipe, it seemed enormous.  My stoma is about the size of a 10p piece with a small hole in the centre.  The radiologist-man helper was sent out to get a smaller tube, a size 8 was used and she started to insert it.  I started to cry.

The feeling is a bit odd to say the least.  Every atom in my body wanted to shout 'get off me/out of me'.  It felt so wrong to have someone ferreting around inside my stoma.  I asked her to stop, they went and got Hari and he held my hand until she'd finally got the tube inside and started injecting the contrast.  Pain is good, pain I can handle but this uncomfortableness is just skin crawling, squeamish, nauseating and my heart was racing like a crazy person.  And then there is the actual xray machine, about 2 inches away from my stoma.  A piece of equipment the size of an average elephant suspended from the ceiling and moving perilously close to my stomach.  The whole experience was horrendous.  She'd kept saying "You're doing really well" to me but I knew it was just part of the speill; like asking if you want fries in McDonalds.  I knew my getting upset was pissing her off, I could tell I was being a hassle and that didnt help my with my insecurity.

20 minutes after the whole thing started, it was over.  I was covered in a soggy mess of wee, sticky constrast liquid and sodden towels & padding and I now had to put a fresh bag on sitting bolt upright on an x-ray table; not easy.  But I once changed my bag whilst drunk and standing on one leg in a filthy toilet in Greece so y'know, thats how it goes.

Tonight I will be having a glass of wine and sod the kidneys.  Just for tonight though...

I never want to hear the word Loopogram EVER again!!