A few years ago--could have been 2 or 20, when you get to my age one seems much like the other--anyhow, a few years ago, there was a popular saying: shit happens, then you die. It was never particularly clear if that was meant to pass as a sage bit of wit or sardonic wisdom, and I was never amused enough to care. And, then, that phrase suddenly came rushing back to me last week--in a most literal sense--after a routine CT Scan of my abdomen unleashed an intestinal conflagration of near-biblical proportions. To be exact, it was the "shake" they made me drink 2 hours prior to the exam that opened the gates of the fiery furnace. 

"Strawberry or Cappuccino-flavored?" the perky receptionist asked me when I dropped by the outpatient clinic to pick up this foul concoction earlier in the week. "I've heard the Cappuccino is better." she purred. 

"Cappuccino, then," I answered blithely, not realizing that behind this woman's cheery smile lurked the deceitful heart of a succubi. After returning from a back room with 2--not small--containers of beige fluid, the receptionist handed them over and sent me on my way. The containers were roughly the same size and shape as those one sends through the pneumatic tubes at the bank's drive-thru. 

They expect me to drink both of these? I wondered, sliding the containers into the refrigerator, where I promptly forgot them until the day of the CT Scan rolled around. 

In retrospect, maybe I should have demurred before slurping down that second "shake". The first had taken awhile to get through. For starters, it had the consistency of a can of paint. I've never actually tried to drink a can of paint but I have, in fact, painted so you'll just have to trust me on this. And that vaunted cappuccino flavor? Let's just call that what it is: bullshit! It tastes about as much like cappuccino as it does a bottle of Pepto Bismol with bouquets of Nesquik and Sanka secreted within.  

In the end, I drank it all, mainly because I wanted my insides to be good and thoroughly coated with the stuff, and also because I had no idea of the abject misery that lay ahead. I started getting a clue, however, as I sat in the reception area waiting for my name to be called. The rumbling in my stomach initially suggested that I might need food; after all, I'd skipped breakfast as per the instructions of all and sundry medical personnel involved in this misadventure. 

But, no, it was not food that I needed. I was immediately disabused of that notion when a seismic jolt found me scurrying out of the metal chair to my feet. Had a face-hugger somehow slipped onto my face in the middle of the night and slyly implanted a baby alien in my gut? Because that's exactly what I was feeling at that very moment. Frantically scanning the room, I spotted a vaguely official-looking elderly woman perched benignly behind a counter. 

Bathroom! I mouthed with undisguised urgency, because, let's face it, I was well beyond carrying out a search on my own. I had a full-fledged crisis that had seemingly bloomed fast and furious out of nowhere. 

Pointing to a niche in the opposite wall that I'd assumed contained a janitorial closet, the woman smiled sadly and I executed a quick-but-cautious side-shuffle (knees together, feet apart) to the designated spot and secluded myself therein. The ensuing spectacle may, perhaps, have been better suited for an early-morning liftoff from Cape Canaveral. Quite frankly, in all my years on earth, I never fully appreciated the human body's ability to eject unwanted matter with such a degree of velocity and force. Every atom in my body felt as if it had been split in two: I had become my own source of nuclear fission. By the time my eyes unrolled from the back of their sockets, I was stunned to see that the enclosure in which I'd hovered remained intact. As had certain bones and tendons, which I assumed to have been splintered by the initial blast. Although feeling had yet to return to my lower extremities, I managed to pull myself upright and decamp from the toilet with what little dignity I could summon. 

Little did I know, this party was just getting started.

Inside the CT Scanning room, the tech presented me with a cup of viscous, white liquid. "Drink this," she commanded.

"What is this?" I asked, already knowing full well that it was the same devil's potion as before. Of course, I drank it, and off I went again, hurtling down the hallway towards that tiny cubicle from hell. By the time I returned--some thirty minutes later--I was wan, sweaty and significantly worse for wear. As I collapsed onto the sheeted platform, the tech stretched a tourniquet around my arm. "Why?" I stammered. 

"We have to inject you with the contrast, too," she explained, sliding the needle into a vein. By now, my insides should have been glowing with sufficient intensity to be observed by any Chinese spy balloons still lingering over Montana. "Oh, by the way," the tech added, "this might burn." Then she pushed the plunger and sent the despised contrast coursing through my body. 

As it happens, it did burn, although there was such a fierce fire already burning down below that this seemed almost beside the point. After finally being well and truly scanned, I was released to go home, but not before another prolonged pitstop in the stall where familiarity was decidedly breeding contempt. Into this gastric apocalypse walked a stocking-capped Gen Z-er in a flannel shirt. Spying him through the crack between the stall door and the wall, I wondered, Why is he dressed for winter, it's 85 degrees outside! 

And then he propped himself up against the sink and....waited! Obviously the urinal on the other wall was not going to suit his purposes so it was with mounting horror that I realized he was waiting for me to finish up so he could proceed with his own business. Gott im himmel, I thought, because it was clear to me that I wasn't going anywhere soon and this guy lurking 3 feet away wasn't going to hasten my departure. Unaware that my very last brain cell had already taken the deep dive, along with the fillings in my teeth, and everything I'd even thought about eating in the past month, I decided to outwit and outwait the intruder. Besides, wasn't I actually doing him a favor? The state of that toilet was, by then, unfit for human habitation. This idea, unsurprisingly, turned out not to be a stroke of genius. I waited. He waited. We both waited. It was becoming a stalemate from which there could emerge no victor. At long last, I did win this test of wills but only because C came in to check and see if I was still alive. 

By the time I prised myself from that throne, C half-carried me to the car. Breathing a sigh of relief as I slid gingerly into the passenger seat, I closed my eyes and felt a flurry of soothing air sweep across my hot face. It's the other end I should really have in front of these vents, I remember thinking. We pulled into a traffic mess, unfortunately not an unusual occurrence in South Florida. Instead of the usual 20 minute ride home, it would likely be closer to 30 or 35 minutes. No problem, because I thought--mistakenly, it turned out--that I'd been emptied from brain pan to heels. 

About halfway home, I discovered the folly of my thinking. The familiar baby-alien feeling began kicking around in my gut again and I soon found myself devising a plan that included dashing amongst some trees off to the side of the road while the traffic was stalled. Luckily, like Moses parting the Red Sea, the cars suddenly flowed from one lane into three and a clear path emerged ahead. I found that if I clenched hard enough and wrapped my legs around one another like a pretzel, I could probably make it home before the next onslaught. Surely it couldn't be much of anything anyway. Could it? 

Well....

C pulled into our parking spot and I leapt from the car before it came to a complete stop. Sprinting up the steps two at a time, I threw open the door and headed directly for the loo. Whatever had happened before this turned out merely to be a prelude for the ensuing pyrotechnics. Precisely, it felt like someone shoved a rocket launcher down my throat and spent the next 3 hours shooting jet fuel out of my ass. This is not an exaggeration. I am still sitting on a blow-up donut pillow one week later! Imagine the city of Tokyo after Godzilla finished his rampage, and therein lies the landscape of my ass. On top of all that, I'm pretty sure I have PTSD too. Given the sheer scope and intensity of the evacuation, who wouldn't? 

Yet, even with the back door blown off its hinges, the CT Scan found nothing of significance. Nothing. Of. Significance. A good thing, obviously, but, still..... after all that, I expected something, preferably something easily fixed by a quick tweak or a couple of pills. Nope. So now we move on to Part 2 on Monday, which is an endoscopy requiring me merely to go to sleep without having to choke down some vile concoction designed to blast the lid off the thermosphere. After this past week, I need the rest.