Patty-Cake Cats & Gastroscopy

This is a visually altered and enhanced image of the inside of my stomach.

Earlier today I had to go to the hospital to have a gastroscopy.  Well strictly speaking I had an oesophagogastroduodenoscopy but gastroscopy is easier to say.  A gastroscopy is a procedure performed with an endoscope inserted into your stomach via your oesophagus (more commonly called your throat) and possibly beyond.  The endoscope is a medical instrument used to examine the interior of a hollow organ in the body and is usually a long flexible tube containing optical fibres to supply illumination, a tube to supply air (to inflate the organ) and instrumentation to relay video images.  There is also often a spare tube to insert other instruments like snippers to cut bits out for biopsies or culture samples.

Not a pleasant experience.  You can be sedated for the procedure but this carries its own additional risks and leaves you unfit to do anything for 24 hours.  In my case I have no one to get me home so I opted to simply have the back of my throat numbed with a very nasty tasting spray.  Having someone push a rather large and not so very flexible rubber hose down your throat and then guggling about for 15 minutes is decidedly uncomfortable and quite gruesome.  The sensation of having your stomach blown up is pretty weird too.  I suspect that if you ever have to have a gastroscopy the idea is to only have one because after you know what to expect I think it is probably even worse.  But, if you are reading this because you are going to have one and want to know what it is like all I can say is it is quite tolerable but not nice.  I think the worst of it is the idea of what is going on.  At least that is the worst of it for me.  They did warn me that I might have a sore throat for a day or two but when the numbing spray wore off after about 45 minutes there was no soreness at all.  I drove home and have been perfectly fine since.

But since this is a particularly horrible subject I decided some light entertainment was required and so here is the latest Patty-cake cats video for your entertainment.


Thank you and good night.