The Resistance

Yesterday I fought a good fight.

I was outnumbered, overpowered and underdressed but still I fought determinedly.

It was 10am on Saturday, at a clinic where I was booked for a gastroscopy a.k.a endoscopy a.k.a examination of the stomach via a tube with a camera at the end.

The procedure seemed like a good idea at the time my doctor proposed it; I’d been having tummy trouble for a while and - worried that everyone at home and work was beginning to think I was a hypochondriac - felt it was important to investigate the matter once and for all. Plus I’ve become seriously paranoid about my health after the Pancreas Episode.

However, when it was time for the doctor to stick the tube down my throat I found myself wrestling with him and the nurse. I twisted the nurse’s hand away with one hand, shoved the tube away with the other and struggled into an upright position, gasping, coughing, choking, crying, angry.

I hopped off the operating table and tried to escape in my green backless surgical gown but they grabbed me before I could make it out of the room and down the street (with the green gown flapping in the harmattan wind.)

I didn’t like the way I was so aware of what was going on and asked for more sedative.

“I want you to be conscious enough to see the inside of your stomach on the screen” the doctor said excitedly. “The colours are so vivid; the yellows and reds and…”

Er, that’s enough doc, I really don’t want to see or feel anything.

I refused to lie down until they gave me more sedative. They refused to give me more sedative until I lay down. Negotiations were deadlocked and no one wanted to back down.

“What is all this?” the doctor asked in exasperation, “You’ve done this procedure several times before”

“Yes, but back then I was seriously ill and desperate for a solution. Now I’m relatively healthy and I object to having tubes down my throat”

“But you have to do it. We’re all here now, we can’t go home”

I offered to pay for the procedure and the inconvenience if we could agree not to go ahead with it but the doc refused. “We need to know what’s wrong.”

“Fine, but I don’t want to be aware of what you’re doing while you’re finding out what’s wrong.”

“But I’m not going to put you under general anaesthesia for a minor procedure like this.”

“Fine, then give me more sedative.”

“Fine, then lie down.”

I lay down cautiously but refused to put the plastic mouth guard back in until they injected more sedative.

“Don’t you trust me?” my doctor asked. I raised an eyebrow, or at least tried to. It was difficult to project witty cynicism in a half-drugged, half-naked state.

“Why don’t you trust me?” he persisted. I couldn’t believe we were having an Oprah-like conversation at a time like that and tried to roll my eyes but for some reason my eyeballs weren’t fully functional.

The doctor eventually kept his word, increased the dose of sedative and my last thought before I drifted into a floaty, dreamy state was:

“Aahh, this is far better than Benylin (with Codeine) ha ha zzzz”