Home for the holidays...?

Forget nutrition, I think it is time that I run for mayor.

Or get a Minnesota driver's license.

Or have a building named after me!

Or maybe a frozen yogurt flavor?? Oooooo yes.

You see, by the end of this year, I will have spent at least one third of 2012 in Minnesota. That makes me a resident, right?

Yes. Minnesota. My home away from home.

So one would think, based on the last two years, that there is not a single organ/system in my body that has not been studied, tested, poked and prodded. In fact, so many of them have been tested, re-tested and re-re-tested that you would think it all evened out in the end.

Nope.

Wrong.

A few weeks ago, during one of my speech appointments, my wonderful SLP gave me "the look."

Ya know, the "I reeeeeeally hate to ask this, but we need to run just ooooone more test. I promise this is the last one" look.

You'd think I'd know by now that when "the look" comes out, I should run swiftly in the other direction. In fact, forget run, I should go for a full out sprint. Insanity is, after all, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Needless to say, I am not Einstein.

My SLP explained that all of the swallowing studies that I had already done showed still images of my esophagus, but they really didn't provide enough information for her and my doctors. What they really needed was a video.

Or they just really wanted a video of a giant chewing skeleton to project on the side of their haunted houses for Halloween. Also possible.

A few days later, I headed to the hospital for another swallowing study, this time with a video. By now, I certainly have the drill down pat - swallow the fizzy tablets, bloat up like a walrus, swallow a disgusting amount of barium products while standing on an X ray table and "enjoy" albino insides for the rest of the week. As instructed, I brought some props - rice chex, bread and crackers, and the radiologist dipped them all in barium so they could watch me swallow.

Side note: When the radiologist promises you barium marshmallow fluff for your study, it is neither made of marshmallow, nor is it fluffy. In fact, it comes out of a toothpaste tube and in no way bears any resemblance to my elementary school fluffer-nutter sandwiches. Now you know.

After the test, I asked the hospital SLP and radiologist if they had any thoughts and they invited me to stand with them while they reviewed the video. I know, I know, there are serious perks to celebrity status!

SLP: "So when did you have a stroke?"

"Um...I haven't had a stroke."

SLP: "Oh...are you at risk for a stroke?"

"Not that I know of?"

SLP: "Ok so you must have had a brain tumor. When was that?"

"Um...no...?"

Right. So apparently my dysphasia (difficulty swallowing) is being caused by a neurological malfunction and was definitely not caused by my thyroid surgery. The vocal chord paralysis and dysphasia are now definitively two separate issues. And as crazy as this is to believe, none of the umpteen-million doctors I have seen have thought about my noggin and even crazier, in the umpteen-zillion-million tests I have had, none have included an MRI of my brain.

I looked left. I looked right. Come on, I'm being Punk'd right?

No Ashton Kutcher.

Personally, I think my doctors at Mayo have caught wind of my tendency to bake a ridiculous number of tasty treats during the month of December, and they want in on the action. I mean, who can blame them? I know I can't make reasonable decisions with images of oatmeal scotchies, chocolate crinkles and gingerbread men dancing through my mind. Can you?

So the week before Christmas, I will be heading out to Rochester to deliver cookies, greet my fan club, sample new flavors of frozen yogurt...oh and hang out with neurology and get a new feeding tube.

Wait, those aren't some of your holiday traditions?

Weird.