Isn’t this a silly idea for a post? Travel tips from the babiest newbiest travel baby you know! But first of all: if YOU TOO are a newbie traveler, who do you want tips from, huh? Someone who’s going to stress you out and make you feel stupid by saying “Oh you really CAN’T MISS [difficult/expensive/niche thing you have no intention of doing]!” and “Now, don’t just go to the TOURISTY areas…”—as if you aren’t a tourist; as if it is silly to want to see/do tourist things; as if YOU have already been there three times like THEY have, when they ABSOLUTELY DID see/do all the touristy things they’re now making you feel ridiculous for wanting to see/do? Or would you rather get tips from SWISTLE, who will tell you about the thing where you have to put your hotel key card into a little slot, and will warn you about the rice? That’s what I thought.

But secondly, these are not actually tips for you, they are tips for me. I learned pretty thoroughly from this trip that tips from other people can be overwhelming and unhelpful. You get FULLY CONTRADICTORY advice: “Now DON’T overpack—but make sure you bring [a dozen things you weren’t planning to pack, some of which are bulky].” You get advice you can’t tell if it applies to you or not, but it’s strongly stated and as if it applies to absolutely everyone, so you worry if you ignore the advice you’ll end up kicking yourself. You get advice about seeing and doing more things than you can possibly see/do, which can be overwhelming. People who have traveled extensively have largely forgotten the things that were surprising to them when they were new to traveling, so they don’t tell you about the key card and the rice. And/or, the reason they’ve traveled so much more than you have is that they’re not temperamentally like you in any way, and so they give you all the advice that applies only to people like them (COMFORTABLE WORLD TRAVELERS), and not to people like you.

So these are my tips TO MYSELF. I know I will THINK I will remember all these things without writing them down, but I will not. Maybe they will also be relevant to you, or maybe not.

Travel tips, to me!:

• Plan on wasting the first evening in any new place, because you will be having a little meltdown over everything being new and different, and you will need to play Candy Crush and eat cookies/candy and go to bed early. By the next day, you will be feeling happier and more at home.

• Get coffee more often than you think you need coffee: sometimes you are low on energy and goodwill, and a little caffeine and fluid is exactly what it takes to restore balance.

• Likewise, eat more often than you think you need to eat, even when you think you’re not hungry: frequently the problem is that you ARE hungry, but you don’t realize it because of overstimulation and jet lag.

• Bring benadryl and melatonin and take them every night even if you think you’ll sleep fine. Take 1.5 or 2 benadryl, not 1: don’t kid yourself.

• Take an extra shower if you have any inclination: as with eating and sleeping, adding some cleanliness can work wonders. Think of the Sims, and how their little floaty diamond can improve so much with a shower or a meal!

• Bring AMPLE dramamine, more than you think you can possibly use. Remember bus/train/subway rides as well as plane rides.

• Bring a second pair of shoes, for if/when the first pair gets wet. It feels like it’s not worth the suitcase space, but wet feet are a misery.

• Bring a casual dress, or a pair of nicer pants and a blouse. It’s nice to have something A Little Nicer for when it turns out the restaurant is a little dressier than expected.

• Bring a nightlight for the bathroom.

• Make a “leaving the hotel room” final-check list; put “bathroom nightlight” and “passports” on it.

• Remember if you get Chinese takeout/delivery, it may not come with rice. Ask about the rice.

• Bring cash for tipping, and for buskers/panhandlers, and for pay-toilets, and for donation boxes at churches, and so forth.

• Make sure you’re using one of the credit cards that DOESN’T charge you a foreign-currency-exchange fee each time (Chase, TJX), not the one that DOES (L.L. Bean).

• Make reservations for dinner each night. It feels overwhelming to have to plan ahead like that in an unfamiliar place, but you know what’s more overwhelming? Walking around hungry in an unfamiliar place trying to find something to eat and every restaurant is saying no.

• Err on the side of buying the souvenirs: you are a person who is more likely to feel sorry you DIDN’T buy it than sorry you DID. Don’t wait for Just the Right Thing: if you find Just the Right Thing later, you can buy that TOO.

• Get extra cookies (or similar easy fun food) to bring to social events for the next month or so after returning home, and to share at work.

• Make sure there is some SHOPPING TIME, ideally browsing around by yourself, perhaps while everyone else does something vigorous.

• Make the effort to get postcards and postcard stamps and start sending postcards as early as possible: it turns out you LOVE that, and it adds a fun element to every tour stop (ooh, let’s get postcards! and who shall I send these too?), and it gives a fun evening-stroll option (finding a post box), and you don’t care afterward how much the postage cost. BRING ADDRESSES.

• It is a very good idea to spend some time each day in the hotel room playing on your phone, checking email, reading, writing postcards. It feels like you are WASTING YOUR PRECIOUS TRIP!!!! YOU COULD BE CRAMMING IN MORE TRIP THINGS!!! But it’s what makes it possible to recharge enough to enjoy the trip things, and to feel more at home in the room.

• Try to think of the money as play-money. It’s expensive to travel, it just IS. And it would feel very silly to come home from an already-expensive trip and to Not Have Done things on that trip because they cost money. Borrow Paul’s “This is what money is FOR” attitude, even if you cannot entirely make yourself believe it (because money is ALSO for college tuitions and home/car repairs and retirement).

• Bring a little notebook so you can jot down things you want to remember to tell people, things you need to look for in local shops, things you want to remember to do, notes to leave with tips for housekeeping, etc.

• Don’t bring an umbrella: buy one as a souvenir. Buy reusable bags from local stores.

• Go out to a bar in the evening, if the opportunity presents itself. It can be difficult to go out when you feel like settling in for the night, but you will be glad you did. (I wonder if this would reduce first-night woes, or if it would be Too Much? Something to try, maybe.)

• When given an option between something familiar (strawberry yogurt) and something unfamiliar (rhubarb yogurt), try the unfamiliar one. Don’t get mint-chip ice cream, get the clotted-cream-flavored one or the rum raisin. Try to try as many Things You’ve Heard Of (jam roly-poly, coronation chicken) as you can. It turns out you really like to do that, and find it exhilarating; also the food is revitalizing.

• Buy local snack food. It’s fun, and also it’s very good to have food on hand for moments when it turns out food is needed.

• Bring your hat. I know you hate hats, but you will be glad to have the hat.

• If things feel overwhelming, it’s a good idea to sit and admire the view for a little while.

• SPLIT THE GROUP. SPLIT IT. IT IS SO MUCH BETTER IF YOU SPLIT IT. YOU ARE A BETTER PARENT AND BETTER DECISION-MAKER WHEN YOU ARE NOT TRYING TO CO-PARENT ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE.

• Check to make sure the hotel has air conditioning.

• Check to see if there is by any chance a laundromat in any kind of reasonable reach, because it turns out you hate the feeling of stale grubby clothes more than almost anything else. Next time consider buying some quick-dry pants/shorts so you can do more sink laundry—or else budget $40 or whatever to send out two pairs of pants/shorts with the expensive hotel laundry service, because it seems inexcusably expensive but so’s everything, and you’ll get more personal happiness/wellbeing out of two pairs of clean pants/shorts than almost anything else you could spend that money on. Bring a thingie of detergent—the nice lavender-scented one was a good, soothing idea. (It was a sample-size bottle of Love Beauty and Planet lavender detergent, which I got in some sort of beauty box and was saving for a special occasion, and THIS WAS THE BEST SPECIAL OCCASION POSSIBLE.)

• Bring some disposable cutlery, or buy some there.

• Call and order carryout pizza when you’re 30 minutes from home. Pour a drink IMMEDIATELY upon arriving home, and eat the pizza, and leave the luggage/mail/cats/EVERYTHING for AFTER eating/drinking. Remind everyone else that it is common to have post-travel meltdowns upon arriving home, when there is so much to do (the pile of mail! the unpacking! chores!) and when the house looks so cluttered and grubby compared to the hotel rooms someone else was keeping clean for you.

• Don’t hugely add to your stress before the trip by killing yourself with housework—but you will thank yourself if you clean the bathroom before you leave (it’s more than fine if you clean it several days before and just touch it up the day of departure).

I intended to write a “what it was like” post after my first colonoscopy was over, in the interest of making people feel more normal about colonoscopies. But now that the time is here, I find myself reluctant.

Partly it’s because of the very reason it’s important to make people more comfortable: colonoscopies involve EMBARRASSING ELEMENTS. I don’t really want to talk about them or think about them.

Partly it’s because I don’t want to accidentally talk you out of it. I’m really glad I had it done, and I think YOU should have it done when it’s your time; but if I tell you what it was like, perhaps you will be like my co-worker who is five years older than me but hasn’t had her first colonoscopy yet because she’s heard what it’s like and she doesn’t want to do that. On the other hand: I was glad to know ahead of time what it would be like. During the prep, it helped me to think, “This is how everyone said it would be. There are many, many people in the world right now who are also doing a colonoscopy prep, and we are all miserable together right now; it’s not just me.”

Well. How about if I tell you SOME of what it was like. I know we’re all supposed to be comfortable with bodies and body words and body functions, but there’s no law, and I will use euphemisms and elision if I want to. I’m sure you have OTHER friends who will be more explicit about it. I will tell you the SWISTLE version.

I have had an endoscopy before, and so you can start there if you want, because the endoscopy/colonoscopy I had this time was the same in many ways, though different in some important ways, the biggest one being PREP.

Many people told me the prep was the worst part of a colonoscopy, and I entirely agree: the prep made me LOOK FORWARD TO the colonoscopy, because then the prep would be over. For a week before the procedure, I was supposed to eat a low-fiber diet, which you would think would be easy since I already eat keto/low-carb, but what it actually meant was that there was almost nothing I could eat: I could eat eggs, meat, cheese, and yogurt. No broccoli, no spinach, no nuts, no low-net-carb (high-fiber) bread, none of my pitiful little keto treats except Rebel ice cream (the kinds without nuts) and Zollipops. And also I couldn’t take my multivitamin, so overall I felt ungood. A smarter person would have skipped keto for the week and at least enjoyed some white bread and pancakes and fruit cups, and that is what I will FOR SURE do next time.

The day before the procedure, I was allowed to have a light breakfast as long as it was finished 24 hours before the procedure, and then no more food, just liquid-diet things such as broth, jello, juice, coffee-with-no-cream. At 5:00 p.m., I started The Real Prep, and what I would advise if your prep is the same kind (there are several different kinds) is to just assume you are not going to sleep at all that night, so if you DO get some fitful dozing, you’ll feel happy and lucky. I also advise sleeping near a bathroom, and ideally not near anyone who is able to sleep normally; I slept downstairs in a recliner. The Real Prep started with mixing 14 doses of Miralax into two quarts of liquid (I chose Powerade Zero; I hoped the electrolytes would be useful), and drinking it over the next 2.5 hours. At 8:00 p.m., I was supposed to take four Dulcolax/bisacodyl tablets.

The nurse and my co-worker both said those things wouldn’t have an effect until around 11:00 p.m. or even midnight, but for me it was more like 7:30/8:00 p.m.; I wondered if it was because of keto. This part of prep was like having a stomach bug / food poisoning, without the barfing. You know what that’s like. It was like that. The nurse recommended using A&D ointment to reduce irritation, and I was CERTAIN we had some in the house but I could not find it, so I used Bag Balm. You might be tempted, ahead of time, to think “Eh, I don’t need anything like that, I’ll be fine, and ointment is kind of icky” but I encourage you to listen to Auntie Swistle and buy an ointment. Just have it in the cupboard, IN CASE you want it.

I was able to sleep a little, though I kept having stress dreams: I am trying to take a pre-appointment shower but people keep barging into the bathroom / the water won’t turn on / I can’t rinse out the shampoo / Paul is calling out that we’re late for the appointment and need to leave NOW but I haven’t washed yet; or, oh no, I am accidentally eating food, and now I have wasted the whole week of prep. And I kept waking up to use the bathroom. And I felt queasy.

At 3:00 a.m., I had to mix 7 doses of Miralax into one quart of liquid, and drink it in one hour. I’d thought I wouldn’t go back to sleep after that, but I did, though restlessly: more dreams, more waking up to run to the bathroom.

Starting at 4:00 a.m., four hours before check-in at the hospital and five hours before the scheduled procedure, I wasn’t allowed to have anything at all to eat or drink.

By the time we left for the hospital at 7:15 a.m., I was no longer running to the bathroom. I’d worried that there would be issues with the long car ride, but there were not.

When I arrived at the hospital, things were very similar to the endoscopy. I gave them the same paperwork I’d had to do for the endoscopy (health conditions, when was the last time I had anything to eat/drink, medications, etc.); I got a hospital bracelet; I was led back to the area with a bunch of little curtained waiting rooms. They asked me to pee in a cup for a pregnancy test. For the endoscopy, I only had to undress from the waist up; for the endoscopy/colonoscopy, I had to undress entirely, including swapping my socks for their grippy hospital socks, and I changed into a hospital smock. They gave me a blanket, and I settled into the hospital bed. A nurse came to ask a bunch of questions about the prep, and to put in an IV and take vital signs. Then I had visits from the anesthesiologist and the doctor, with paperwork to sign for both.

They’d warned me that the appointment might start late if the two people scheduled before me ran longer than expected, and that’s what happened: I was supposed to have the procedure at 9:00 a.m., but we didn’t actually start until 10:15; I was glad I’d brought a book. When it was my turn, it felt like things happened very quickly. I was wheeled into a procedure room. The nurse-anesthesiologist put a blood pressure cuff on my left arm and an oxygen monitor on my right hand. She put in that little nose-oxygen thing. She had me lie on my left side (that felt a little odd with the blood-pressure cuff), and they put a towel under me, which I found embarrassing and wished they could have done after I was unconscious, or perhaps have put in place when making the bed so it would already be there.

She told me they’d be using propofol, which I’ve had before (for the endoscopy and for my dental implant); she said people sometimes wake up a little during the procedure, but that no one who wakes up CARES that they’ve woken up.) I felt as if I would care, maybe not at the moment then LATER ON, THINKING ABOUT IT. The doctor arrived, the nurse double-checked my name and date of birth, and then the nurse-anesthesiologist said she was going to start the propofol, and that I might feel certain side-effects I can’t remember now (heat near the IV? prickles in my face? some things like that). After a few seconds, I remembered that I was going to see how high I could count before I fell asleep, and I counted to about ten and by then I was out; I felt a little funny but mostly just very pleasantly sleepy, and glad we were finally getting on with things and soon it would be over.

When I woke up afterward, but was not fully awake, the first thing I asked was had I woken up during the procedure. The nurse said, “A little—do you remember it?” and I did NOT remember it, which made me sorry I’d asked, and/or sorry I hadn’t been a little more awake so I could have asked some follow-up questions. (Did I…TALK?? during the procedure?)

They wheeled me into a little recovery area; I looked at a clock and saw I’d been in the procedure room for about 45 minutes. A nurse brought me a warm blanket and a hot coffee and a warm blueberry muffin, and I felt very perky and happy, and relieved to have the procedure over with and to have moved on to the stage that included a blueberry muffin. Another nurse came in to show me the preliminary results of the endoscopy and colonoscopy; a little while later, the doctor came in to go over them with me briefly, though she said she will send her full report to my primary care doctor, and also to me in a letter. After maybe 30-45 minutes total in recovery I was able to get dressed and leave. Biopsy results will be back…later, I don’t remember how long she said they take.

From check-in to leaving was about 3.75 hours; the hospital had said to allow 2.5 hours, which is perfect math with the 1.25-hour delay. Except that in my experience, hospitals have delays more often than not, so it would be a good idea to incorporate average delays into the estimated time, particularly since patients MUST have someone there to drive them, and it would be nice for that person to know that things might take significantly longer than budgeted.

On the way home, I made Paul go through a Taco Bell drive-through. And before we’d left for the hospital, I’d had him go out for a dozen doughnuts, so those were waiting for me at home.

In case it is relevant to your own feelings, I will tell you the Coping Thoughts I used to get over the sheer embarrassment of the procedure itself. I thought back to my endoscopy, and how there were a whole bunch of little curtained areas where other patients were lined up waiting—maybe a dozen altogether, all of us being processed, tick tick tick, ask the questions, roll them in, roll them out. All day long, this department does ONLY endoscopies and colonoscopies, one after another. All day long, these staff members deal with all the things that are upsetting or embarrassing to me, and none of those things are upsetting or embarrassing to THEM; all of those things are UTTERLY ROUTINE to them. BEYOND routine. They probably have to force themselves to remember that the situation is upsetting/embarrassing for the patients. It probably comes up at their little staff meetings: “REMEMBER that for OUR PATIENTS this procedure can be…” etc.

And I thought about how MOST of the upsetting/embarrassing things would happen while I was unconscious, and that there was actually no reason or benefit for me to even THINK about what happens between the part where I am getting propofol in my IV and the part where I am eating a blueberry muffin under a warm blanket: I can let the professionals think about that, and I don’t have to think about it or imagine it, even a little bit. I can look forward to the prep being over, and I can look forward to the propofol, and I can look forward to the blueberry muffin; really, there is so much to look forward to, at a colonoscopy!

In the comments section of an earlier post, BSharp wrote this:

I just wanted to mention that my therapist said, Blame is the noise your brain makes when you are not getting your needs met. It’s not always accurate or completely meaningful (though with the mouthwash, omg it sure can be!), the same way suicidal thoughts are the noise your brain makes to ask for help in treating depression. It needs to be addressed! But the topic of the thoughts may not lead to the outcome that actually fixes things and meets your needs.

For example, if you are a sleepdeprived new mom who thinks “My husband needs to do more!!!” that may be true, or it may simply be true that you need to do less, or to get more help elsewhere, or to sleep more and have time unburdened and make sure you belly laugh once a week. Possibly your partner needs to do more! But DEFINITELY you need to get your needs met.

and SquirrelBait responded with this:

This is exactly the kind of thing my therapist says too! And then I say that I can’t meet my own needs and then she tells me all the ways that I can and often she’s right…

And I have found those two comments SO EXTREMELY USEFUL, and so much better than letting my brain cycle endlessly in the things my spouse does / doesn’t do / should do / etc. category. This lets my brain get off that spinner and think about something more interesting, like identifying which needs might not be getting met, and are there ways that those COULD be met. I have a fair amount of time when my mind can chew on things, and it’s been really great to have something better to chew on than what I WAS chewing on.

A friend of mine who went to therapy with her husband said she found it useful when the therapist said something about how the goal of their sessions was to improve the relationship, whether that meant improving the marriage or whether it meant working on amicable and respectful divorce/co-parenting: either way, the goal was to improve communication and behavior. My friend said this took a lot of pressure off the sessions: they were no longer necessarily trying to SAVE THEIR MARRIAGE!!! (which she felt at the time could not be saved), but instead were two people trying to have a more pleasant and effective way of interacting. It shifted what she felt like they were trying to do, and made it feel achievable: like, even if they split (which is what she wanted at the time), the sessions wouldn’t be time wasted.

What I was wondering is if any of you have encountered other such useful concepts about marriage, in therapy or from a book or from a friend or from a page-a-day calendar or otherwise, just anything you find helpful in that recentering/redirecting kind of way, and if you would like to add them to the Chew On This pile.

Backstory first, because it has been so long since we last discussed this. (You can skip four paragraphs if you don’t need backstory and just want to hear the endoscopy described.) Very long ago, like three years ago, I started having some trouble with tightness in my throat (it felt like anxiety, but happened even when I was not anxious); also, every two or three weeks I would swallow something and it would feel like it got stuck, and it would be very painful for a few minutes until it finally went down. I wasn’t choking: I could still breathe. But it felt terrible and gross and scary, and it hurt a lot.

And so two and a half years ago, after it had happened enough times that it didn’t seem like it was just a fluke, I went to the doctor, who said it could be reflux, which surprised me very much because I didn’t feel like I was having any kind of heartburn symptoms. She further said that my light persistent cough could ALSO be reflux/heartburn, which I doubted: we have a lot of respiratory/asthma/allergy stuff in the family, so that seemed like a more likely explanation path to pursue than heartburn I wasn’t feeling.

She started me on a daily dose of omeprazole, which almost immediately stopped both the coughing and the problems with swallowing. (It is as if doctors possess a level of expertise and knowledge that I do not possess.) She also sent me for a barium swallow test, which didn’t show any clear reason for the symptoms. So she referred me for an endoscopy; she said to give her a call if they hadn’t contacted me within a couple of weeks. I don’t want to talk much about this, but let’s just say that no endoscopy was scheduled, and I could not GET an endoscopy scheduled, and calls/letters to everyone involved made no difference, and it was inexplicable and baffling, and I finally gave up in despair, and I have no answers for any of your very reasonable questions.

At my recent physical, my doctor said “Hey, did you ever have that endoscopy?” and I was like “???!!!!????!!! THANKS FOR FINALLY TUNING IN” and was literally more like “They didn’t ever…and I called?…but they still didn’t…and then I called here?…but nothing happened…and I sent you a letter?…but nothing ever?…” She said, wait a second, was that like two years ago, and I said yes, and she said things were very bad at that GI’s office then, and also the hospital has added a second GI since then, and let’s try again now…and if they didn’t get in touch within a couple of weeks, just give her a call (????!!!!????!!!!OMG). She said even though the omeprazole was completely handling the symptoms, I was too young for her to say “Yes, just keep taking omeprazole daily for the rest of your life” without doing the endoscopy first. I was like well that’s GREAT, and I join you in this version of reality where I can actually GET an endoscopy.

The GI’s office called the very next morning and set up the endoscopy. So now after four paragraphs, we are finally coming to the topic advertised.

Procedure-wise, it’s in the only-slightly-big-deal category. A half-dozen-page packet arrived after they scheduled the appointment, containing highlighted instructions for “7 days before,” “3 days before,” “the night before,” etc. There were some mild restrictions the week before: no multivitamins with iron, no iron, no fish oil, no vitamin E, that kind of thing. There was a one-sided page of paperwork to fill out: medications, health conditions, drinking/smoking confession.

The hospital called to do pre-registration: name, DOB, address, insurance, employer. I couldn’t have any food after midnight the night before, but I could have liquids (including soda, juice, sports drinks, coffee) up to three hours before the arrival time. I had to bring someone with me to drive me home afterward.

When I arrived at the hospital’s endoscopy department, I checked in and they had me look over a page of information to make sure it was accurate, and they gave me a hospital bracelet. Then a nurse called me in and showed me to one curtained area in a room full of curtained areas; I could easily hear the questions/answers as other nearby patients went through their pre-procedure process. I had to take off shirt and bra and put on a hospital johnny, but I was allowed to keep on my pants/socks and even my shoes.

The nurse asked me some questions, including when I’d last taken medications and when I’d last had anything to eat or drink, and then put in an IV. She told me roughly what would happen during the procedure and how long it would take, and that I would not be conscious so don’t worry about any of the things she was describing. She said to expect a quick visit beforehand from the anesthesiologist and from the doctor who would be doing the procedure. Those two visits came to pass; they seemed more like “Here, you can look at my face first so this doesn’t seem so impersonal” plus asking me twice more when I’d last had anything to eat or drink. This whole part, from the nurse bringing me to the curtained pre-procedure area until I was being wheeled into the procedure room, took approximately one hour; most of it was sitting in a hospital bed and waiting and listening to other patients answer questions. One woman there for a colonoscopy was very funny about it.

The procedure nurse came to wheel me into the procedure room; it was a small room, like the size of a regular doctor’s exam room, not like a big operating room; it was quite crammed full of equipment. I was fairly nervous by this time. They took my vital signs again, confirming nervousness. The nurse anesthesiologist was there, and explained that once the doctor arrived she’d put the sedative (propofol) into my IV. She put those little oxygen prongs into my nostrils, saying “Everyone gets extra oxygen,” and put those little sticky monitoring pads on various parts of my chest. They had me lie on my left side; they put a prop behind me so I couldn’t roll back. The nurse stayed in my field of vision and kept updating me on what was happening and why, which I found reassuring. The doctor arrived; the nurse anesthesiologist started the sedative and said I might feel dizzy at first; she said I should breathe in through my nose. I did feel pleasantly dizzy/buzzed. Out of curiosity, I counted how many seconds I stayed conscious after the dizzy feeling started; I got to 14.

The procedure itself takes less than 10 minutes; it’s the prep/recovery that takes up the time. I had an arrival time of 1:00; I was being wheeled in there shortly after 2:00; and I was in Recovery before 2:30 (I’m not sure exactly when I arrived, but when I asked the time it was 2:30). I woke up hearing someone say “It’s all done!” and my memory is fuzzy but I think I was being wheeled into the little recovery bay at the time. I was sleepy but felt fine; my pillow was drooly, which I didn’t notice until the nurse thoughtfully flipped it over for me. She asked if I wanted Paul called in, and I said not yet. She had me roll back onto my back, and then she raised me into more of a sitting position, and she offered coffee/tea/juice/water/muffins/crackers. I had some coffee, and over the next ten minutes or so I returned to feeling basically normal. This is when they called Paul back to join me. I was in Recovery for about half an hour total; then they had me get dressed, and Paul and I were moved to more of a consultation room, where we waited to have a chat with the doctor who did the endoscopy.

We waited twenty minutes or so, and then the doctor came in very briefly, very friendly but definitely in a hurry, just to give preliminary results. He’s going to wait for the biopsy results to come back, and then send a report to my primary doctor to give a full report and his recommendations. But he says it looks to him as if I should continue to take the daily omeprazole: it’s handling the symptoms completely without having any problematic side effects. He saw some stuff that explains why I’m having difficulties, but it’s nothing that needs to be fixed unless it starts causing me more difficulty than it’s currently causing.

They warned me I might have a sore throat afterward; mine was not sore, but my voice was a little hoarse and I felt like I needed to clear my throat more often for a few hours. My tongue also felt weird for a day or two afterward. Like, you know when you’re sick and your tongue gets too dry while you sleep, and it feels so gross like a dry sponge, and even after you get a drink of water your tongue feels a little weird/wrong for awhile? There was a part of my tongue that felt like the post-rehydration version of that.

The entire thing was less than 2.5 hours from arrival to departure, and if I had to have it done again I’d be a LOT less nervous–and frankly kind of looking forward to the propofol.

One of the most satisfying things that happened in the hospital:

We’d checked in on Tuesday night. I was okay with skipping showering on Wednesday. But by Thursday, especially after all that adrenaline, I was feeling a little grim. I’d brought fresh socks/shirts/underwear, and I had deodorant and a toothbrush; I’d done what I could with the public-restroom-style brown paper towels and the antibacterial handsoap. But still. My hair was feeling bad, and I’d been sleeping in my clothes, and I only had one pair of pants, and my cardigan was already due for a laundering when I grabbed it on Tuesday. I was feeling stale and wilted, and my face looked so tired and stressed and dry in the fluorescent hospital lighting.

I looked online and found that there was a familiar chain drugstore just a couple of blocks from the hospital. I made one extremely brief attempt to get there (i.e., walking out the doors, looking around, realizing I didn’t even know whether to go left or right or what), then came right back inside and asked the Info Desk, and she was extremely nice and pointed me to a completely different exit door. I walked along the sidewalk, feeling the weird intimidated exhilaration of a town-mouse in a city, trying to be all cool about it, like “Yeah, here I am, in a city, no big, using crosswalks with crossing lights like it’s totally normal for me, stepping around piles of unknown substances like a boss!” Also feeling kind of oily and grubby, but better out in the fresh(ish) air and sunshine.

I found the drugstore, and I got a shopping basket, and then I spent some time there in a fugue state of happiness and gratitude, going up and down every aisle in a reverie. That such a store should exist! That it should exist within brief walking distance of the hospital! That I should be able to buy the things there that would make me so much more comfortable and happy! That I should be in the lucky percentage of the population that could do so without facing financial distress! Oh how wonderful to be alive!

Each thing on my hopeful list, I checked it off. A 2-in-1 conditioning shampoo! An inexpensive-but-familiar face lotion that would work well for day and night since no sunscreen was needed! A fabric-freshening spray! A bar of nice-scented soap! A travel-size toothpaste! A hairbrush! A 3-pack of underwear, which they happened to have in my size even though they had only half a dozen packages total! A 3-pack of socks! How lucky, how very lucky, how very very lucky!

I went back to the hospital with my bag of success, feeling as if I had conquered Rome in a peaceful way with no injury, death, or cultural suppression. I took one of the best showers of my life, right up there with the first shower after any of my c-sections; also up there with the first shower I took at home after attending, as a self-conscious and modest teenager, a weeklong camp where, as it turned out, there were cold-water showers, and everyone was undressing publicly where everyone waiting in line could see them do so, so I took one (1) total shower the whole week, and it was the one where I learned that these things were the case, and then no more after that until I returned home and showered for a long, long time.

In terms of cleanliness/joy, I felt like a woman in a shampoo commercial. And the whole hospital room smelled better, because of the soap (Yardley’s English Lavender) and the spray (Downy Wrinkle Release Spray Plus). I spritzed my pants with fabric refresher! I washed a shirt in the sink using the bar soap! It was a transformation, a game-changer. Everything was better after this outing/shower/day.

As satisfying as it was to solve the problem of not having those things with me, I have made a list for the future, in order to avoid having to solve that problem again except when absolutely necessary. Here is my new Packing List for a Hospital Stay with a Child:

Packing List for a Hospital Stay with a Child

laptop & charging cable
phone & charging cable
back-up phone batteries

books
snacks

travel backpack
purse
pillow
laundry bag

deodorant
hairbrush
toothbrush/toothpaste/floss
day/night face lotion
hair gel
hair clips & ponytail holders
medications/vitamins
little pill container
Downy fabric-freshening spray
2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner
bar soap

underwear
socks
shirts
spare pants
pajama pants
CARDIGAN

underwear for child
pants for child
one shirt for child
one pair socks for child
shoes for child
deodorant for child
toothbrush for child
hairbrush for child
child’s phone
books for child
comfy throw blanket for child

That looks like a huge list, but it all fit into a backpack and a tote bag, plus the throw blanket carried separately, and the pillow left behind in the car in case I didn’t need it (I didn’t).

CARDIGAN is all-capsed because the first draft of the list didn’t include it, and then I remembered it and was electrified with horror at the idea of forgetting it. The hospital was so chilly, I wore the cardigan around the clock and wished for a warmer(/cleaner) one.

My travel backpack is the one I use when Edward and I go to his Remicade appointments. It has in it a warm hat for him (he sometimes gets chilly during infusions), and an umbrella, and a bunch of ketchup packets (he usually prefers more ketchup than is provided with his hospital meal). Carrying some of my stuff on my back makes me feel less like I’m arriving with a huge pile of luggage.

“Little pill container” refers to the a pillbox I keep in my purse with a couple doses each of ibuprofen, benadryl, decongestants, caffeine, prescription tranquilizers.

It’s “one pair socks for child” because the hospital provides non-slip socks for the patient. So the child only needs a regular pair of socks for the trip home, as well as one pair of pants and one shirt for the trip home, because they wear a hospital johnny the rest of the time; or they might want another pair of pants to wear with the johnny, as Edward did. And you would think “shoes for child” would go without saying, since the child would be WEARING shoes, but I added it because I came very close to dropping Edward’s shoes off at home when I stopped there between ER and children’s hospital: he took them off in the ER, and then they took him by ambulance from there so he hadn’t put them back on, and I’d scooped them up with our other things.

“Comfy throw blanket” isn’t necessary if you’re traveling light, and neither was pillow as it turned out, but I like to think of those things and consider if I want them or not; and Edward has a favorite throw blanket he uses all the time at home, which turned out to be really nice to have with us.