Filed under: Only Happens to Amo

Today I had to go in for an angiogram to try and figure out why I hear my heartbeat in my left ear. Now mind you, I don't really care that this occurs unless it wakes me up. Otherwise, meh, at least I know it's still beating. Right?

If you're a neurologist, the obvious answer to that question is no, apparently.

After numerous MRI's, a CT, hearing and vision tests, I drew the short straw and was sent to a neurosurgeon.

After 30 minutes of trying to talk her out of this procedure I mentioned, "Hey, I can turn my head and make it go away. Isn't that a good sign?!"

Again, to a neurosurgeon, the obvious answer to that question is no as well.

So I caved. I sucked up my nerve, shaved above the knee and went in. It wasn't an easy decision but more of a 'let's just rule out the really bad stuff so we can get on living life' choice.

I went through all the fun stuff involving blood-drawing, IV-inserting, horse pill-ingesting, ginormous shot in the thigh-wincing and flipping Jessica off for taking pictures of all this. (Just so she couldn't put it on her facebook...heh.)

Once I no longer cared what world I was in, they wheeled me back to the 'Angio Suite', which was by no means the kind of classy place the name suggested. There were huge metal tracts along the ceiling, cameras inside bubbles hanging everywhere, a huge c-shaped machine to take the x-rays and it was about the temperature that Dorkfish says my feet are when I shove them on his back in the middle of the night.

The tech comes in the room and explains that the table isn't working right and so he needs to reboot it or somethingoranother. I, still on my early morning cocktail of Demerol and Versed, was not too fussed about anything happening. A few minutes later, they returned to inform me that the table was in fact broken and they could not fix it themselves. I was sent back to the pre-op area to wait.

Jessica and I were playing on our blackberries when I realized I was having trouble breathing. "Hey, I feel like someone's choking me," I said without the expected MY HAIR'S ON FIRE tone. (Thanks to the cocktail.)

Jessica freaks, "YOU WHAT?! WHAT'S WRONG?!"

"I said I feel like I'm having trouble breathing and incidentally, there's a hot-air sensation on the left side of my face. This might be the worst date I've been on," I snickered.

She paged the nurse and then waited a full three seconds before storming the nurses station in search of help.

They determined it was an allergic reaction and started pumping me full of Benadryl. If you think I'm carefree while on narcotics, you should see me with Benadryl...snort. But it did work in stopping the train wreck that I was quickly and steadily headed toward.

So the good news is that I didn't die on the table as I had predicted since the damn thing wasn't working in the first place.

The bad news is that I now have a drug that I'm allergic to, but they have no idea which one.

In other news, I woke up hung over, hungry and can't remember why I have blue X's drawn on my feet in sharpie. Thus ensuring the entire day was most certainly the worst date ever.

But I get to do it all over again on Tuesday, so apparently it wasn't too bad for the other parties involved.