Feest Time!

Remember the Feest Test that I refused to have ("Gag Order, August 15th.)? That's where they stick a endoscopy camera down your gullet and see if you can swallow solid foods and liquids without choking yourself to death. I had opted out originally and they found a non-invasive way to do it by x-raying me while I was swallowing. Well, now that I was back in the ICU, they decided I had to prove once again that I could eat safely. This time, however, they informed me that if I didn't agree to the Feest (Flexible Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing with Sensory Testing) Test it would take a while to do it the other way...maybe a week! Chayie and Kalman were there for moral support this time and somehow they talked (read: shamed) me into it. My anxiety about gagging notwithstanding, I said I'd try it. The girl (okay, woman, but she was sooooo cute) who wheeled the machine in was so nice and so friendly and so utterly smiley that I couldn't help being nice back. I think my sense of humor might have had a bit of an edge right then, just because I was trying to hide my apprehension. She went with it; I'm sure she'd worked with other crazy patients before. I made my little "I have an overactive gag reflex" speech and she was sweet and reassuring. Then her assistant, a guy named Guy (did you remember that, Chayie and Kalman?) drew the curtain, shut the lights in the room and turned on the monitor. I don't remember this but I'm sure she must have sprayed something down my throat to numb it a bit. Then she stuck the endoscope way down until it reached my larynx. I gagged one little gag, but then I was alright; I had conquered my Gagophobia! I was able to watch my swallowing mechanism right on the monitor and it was really quite cool. The pictures above on the right give you an idea what a larynx looks like through the lens of an endoscope. They gave me green apple sauce (the food coloring is so that they can see it on the screen as it goes down) and green crackers and green water and green milk. I swallowed them (very carefully I might add...I had had enough of feeding tubes!) like a champ without a hitch. Visions of mushrooms danced in my head. I was going to eat again!