The Tower of London, Hospital Style

I knew it was going to be interesting when I noticed the doctor's scrubs on inside out.
Seriously.
No joke.
Dreading my gastroscopy, endoscope, or whatever you wish to call it when they push a tube the size of a garden hose down your throat, through your stomach, and into your duodenum, the tag on her scrubs waving in the wind was almost enough to make me forget that I was entering a torture chamber.
Almost.
Bubbly is too weak an adjective for this doctor's chipper voice. That is, until, she clued in this was not the first time I had been to the medical equivalent of the Tower of London and knew what was coming.
"Oooh. So you've had this test before."
Yes, yes I have. Twice.
I don't mean to be a whiner but in order to invoke your sympathy, I must paint you a picture.
As I lay there on my side, having had four ineffective injections of sedation which is meant to calm and cause amnesia, a plastic mouth guard is placed gently in my mouth for everyone's protection.
No. That's not true.
It's meant for the protection of the garden hose.
Anyhow.
At this point, the computer crashes and they need to reboot. Twice.
Drool starts to trickle down my face. (Gag. Remember, I hate spit.) I jumped at the chance to have it temporarily removed while they trouble-shooted the situation.
A few minutes later and mouth-guard back in, they were ready to go.
"Just swallow the tube," she said.
"I'm pumping air into you now," she said.
"You're doing great," she said.
My involuntary and violent gagging caused tears to roll down my face. This is when the claustrophobia kicked in. Nice and strong. Gagging on a hard plastic tube took my breath away and panic set in.
"You're doing great," she said, as some angel in the room grabbed my hand. I may or may not have squeezed it white as I clung on for life.
Oh, that's nice. I can feel the tube probing my duodenum. So that's where that is. I've been wondering.
"We'll just take a few more biopsies to be sure we have what we need," she said.
Sure. Take your time ladies. I'll just munch on this tasty tube until this picnic is over.
And then it was. Just like that.
So I'm a suck. A big baby.
Other than a scratchy throat for a couple of days, you'd never know it happened. They didn't leave a mark.
A bit of negative, no wait...positive...no, I mean...not good results were given to me and I was told the biopsies would show more.
As I waited for the inactive, useless, I-can-remember-everything sedation to "wear off" in recovery, the next guy could be heard loudly and obscenely dry-retching as they tried to do the test. No-go. He couldn't do it. They had to send him away and told him to see if his GP wanted him to come back.
Ha! So I'm not such a big wimp after all. Who's the baby now?!
That's terrible. I'm awful. It really was traumatic and I totally feel for the guy. Especially if he has to go back and do it again. Yikes.
What I really want you to take away from this woe-is-me saga is the part buried deep in the story-telling.
That angel that held my hand? That's what got me through.
If you are in the nursing or caregiving field, or if you simply ever have the opportunity to hold someone's hand in distress, don't underestimate how much it means.
I have no face to that hand, because as I began to thank whoever it belonged to, they turned to go as they said "you're welcome." But I will remember it's warm, solid and comforting grasp forever.
To all you angels out there...
Thank you.
Oh.
And.
Turn on the light when putting on your scrubs!