In lieu of the recurring infections I've suffered lately, Dr. Sands recommended that I get a renal ultrasound, just to make sure that everything was groovy with my kidneys; so I did that today. I had a little trouble finding the place, but I got there at 1:25, five minutes before my appointment. I did all the paperwork hurriedly and then sat there for half an hour, half-watching that guy from the Real World on Days of Our Lives and half-spacing out.
They called me into the little room, and I had to disrobe waist up and wear their crazy little gown. Then came the ultimate strange experience, a young woman rubbed gel on my stomach and pressed and prodded me various ways for the better part of 45 minutes, searching for my apparently small and hidden kidneys, deliberating especially while leaning on my small floating ribs. It should be noted that for much of this, I was imagining the smallest rib snapping off and floating around my bloodstream and lodging into my heart like Finny in A Separate Peace. Meanwhile, she commanded me to, "Take a deep breath and hold it" (usually for ludicrous lengths of time) or, "Breathe" (which meant go ahead and breathe how you want to) or, "Stop breathing just like that." Stop breathing?! Well, all right. You're the technician. I'll just lie here, gasping sporadically, and watch the ultrasound monitor, where I can see nothing that slightly resembles even a monochromatic kidney. Excellent.
Afterwards, I de-gelled my abdomenal area with a small towel and got dressed, only to have her tell me that we're not even done. No. What comes next is an hour of sitting in the waiting room, drinking water while someone else gets an ultrasound, waiting for my bladder to fill up. Sadly, it only took about 20 minutes for my bladder to feel like I was going to burst and pee everywhere. The remaining 40 minutes were spent pacing the room and shouting the answers to Jeopardy: "What is Chile?", "What is a martini?", "What is Waterworld?", "What are boll weevils?" ...
After the third Daily Double or something, I was called back in, where I jumped on the table and bared my stomach where my bladder was bulging out. She pressed with the little ultrasound tool, and ohhhh, the temptation to just go all over the place was almost irresistable. Almost. Somehow I made it to the bathroom and it was glorious. I can't remember such happiness. She took a few more pictures of "Post Void Bladder" and then I was done.
I got some Sonic on the way home, to cheer myself up after the ordeal, and gave the lady who worked there a dollar for a tip. Even if you're not supposed to tip.
