Just for fun:  The Barium CT Scan

Do you recall Ol’ Mrs. McGlusky, the cafeteria lady at Stratford High. She made a Shepard’s Pie that stuck to your ribs, or to the ceiling if there was a good food fight. It also stuck to the linings of your intestinal tract, designed to stay there for a century or more, if you lived that long. Well, I found the solution. Had the barium prep for the CT scan this morning. Not so bad, a quart of vanilla shake. And the procedure, of course, was a breeze. When I was leaving the cute, little scan-technician said to me, “Oh, by the way, you might have some loose stool later today.” Yeah, sure, I can put up with that, I thought. The technician smiled. She could see right through me. About three hours after the last radiation blast the first urgent warning sent me scampering off to the can. Ah, there, I thought, that’s done. But I still felt some pressure so I delayed heading out. Good thing. Half hour after the first wave came the second. Then in ever shorter intervals the 3d, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th… someplace in here I lost count. By the 4^th I was thinking there goes the hamburger and cheese I had last Tuesday; by the 6^th, there goes the Christmas goose or maybe Thanksgiving turkey. Little did I realize the barium was just getting started. This is kind of a reverse procedure from a colonoscopy where your insides are sanitized prior to the procedure. That seems to make sense. Not sure why, for a barium scan, they need to clean you out after the procedure, but questioning modern medical protocol doesn’t help. Anyway, by the nth trot to the can I realized that it was Good Ol’ McGlusky’s Shepard’s Pie that they were really after.