Yesterday I had my third ultrasound. I have yet to be pregnant.
The first was to nail down what turned out to be a prostate infection. The second was to figure out if the unwelcome lump in my pair of coconuts* was something nasty (it was not).
This time, after a sort-of-diagnosis of possible kidney stone or stones during an Emergency room visit (see the previous entry for the epic tale), I called to arrange the third ultrasound to see if there really might be a kidney stone down there.
My doctor will have the results by the middle of next week. It kind of bugs me that the person doing the ultrasound can see everything plain as day in real-time but can’t say a word while the procedure is being done.
For this one I was given one simple instruction: drink three cups of water an hour before and then don’t pee until after the ultrasound.
I figure this is some kind of test, because while three cups may not sound like a lot, drinking three cups of water in a row is a lot. I felt very bloated. I drank them at work, as I was heading straight to the hospital from there. I made it as far as downtown before I had to pee. This was about twenty minutes. I had a 30+ minute SkyTrain trip ahead of me. By the time I got off at Sapperton station my entire world had been reduced to a mad dash to the nearest toilet.
I went home. I peed. I broke the one ultrasound rule. However, I was running early and still have 45 minutes to go, so I downed another two cups, thinking that would more than compensate, while hoping that I wouldn’t experience the same fierce desire to urinate, having just done so.
On the latter I was wrong.
I needed to pee during the ultrasound, but it wasn’t too bad. The ultrasound was about the same as the others. Well, not quite the same as the second one, as the magic wand was not rubbed all over my testicles in a decidedly non-erotic manner. This time I just had to yank my shirt up a little while the technician pressed (rather firmly at times) the wand into my lower back and adjacent areas. She was very thorough. She mad me take deep breaths and hold them a lot, so it began to take on an almost Zen-like quality. Plus the jelly was nice and warm, unlike the nightmarishly cold stuff of the first ultrasound. What I’m saying is that as hospital experiences go, it was not that bad.
When she completed the ultrasound she said she needed to confirm with the radiologist that the shots were good and this would take a few minutes. By this time I had to pee again very badly. They were a very long few minutes. Fortunately the shots were deemed okay, and the nearest washroom was right outside the ultrasound room. I made liberal use of it.
Ironically, the horrible soreness that caused me to go to the Emergency room has largely disappeared, because my body has decided to be weird and bothersome. But the ultrasound doesn’t lie**, so I should have the results soon.
* clever euphemism
** assuming the foreign object wasn’t some sort of clever alien shapeshifter, of course
