Barium Sulfate

[ricevermicelli]

I had such a terrible day today. I thought I would get some imaging over with and then go to work, but the imaging turned out to involve barium sulfate and radioactive tracers, and then more radioactive tracers, and I did not make it into the office.

Barium sulfate makes me seriously consider bagging this whole imaging and treatment thing in favor of a lovely cottage someplace rural, with meadows for the kids to frolic in, and a lake where we can teach them to swim, and no medical treatment for me at all ever, until they decide to fly in a hospice nurse on a pontoon boat or something. Except that usually in those fantasies, I've been the pontoon boat hospice nurse lady who winds up having a scorching romance with the grieving widower while snowed in over the winter, helping him to heal and realize that he can love again, etc. (These are not fantasies I can recall having after the age of seventeen or so, and good GOD they involved a swelled head, but if you're going to have these fantasies, I strongly recommend that your role in the fantasy be that of the person with the pontoon boat.) (Actually, I take that back. If you need instructions from me on how to have fantasies, there is no hope for you.)

I feel horribly guilty for this train of thought, because of course I have so much to live for and there's plenty of cause for optimism in my overall prognosis, so I have this weird obligation to my life and everyone in it to stay strong and fight the good fight. It's just. Barium sulfate. Drinking that stuff makes me feel like it would be ever so much nicer to just find a truck to run over me fast. And it was faux-vanilla barium sulfate too. For the love of all that's holy, I own dozens of ACTUAL vanilla beans, plucked from orchids in the jungle by slave labor - I had hoped that conniving in the oppression of my fellow humans, I could avoid bad fake vanilla forever.

Tomorrow I have to go back to the hospital so that they can talk to me about chemo and put a port in so that they don't strip my veins over the next several months. I am really looking forward to the part where they sedate the heck out of me.

Comments

[mizarchivist]

So, Saturday: Scorpion bowls? I will bring you a pitcher if that is your heart's desire.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Oh god please you have no idea.

[mizarchivist]

Consider it done.

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

I subscribe to her plan. HUGS

[catling.livejournal.com]

HA! I was actually planning to do this, too. OK, you are getting the Scorpion Bowl fixings? If so, I will not pick them up tonight, I was going to bring 'em and surprise the lass tomorrow but had not gotten the recipe from my bartender boyfriend yet and picked up ingredients.

I am entirely content just to know that Scorpion Bowls for ricevermicelli will happen.

Combine our forces!

[mizarchivist]

Right on- if you have a decent recipe you want to send my way, I'll look it over.

[catling.livejournal.com]

Himself is at work currently. He understands the urgency of our need for the perfect Scorpion Bowl recipe and has promised he will get it to me by sometime this evening.

If you have a recipe you like and want to just do the ingredient shopping today, go for it.... if you want to wait for it, I'll send his recipe to you as soon as he passes it on. =)

He suggested that we use a punch bowl for the presentation. Do you or ricevermicelli have a nice fancy 50s era punchbowl? It's certainly not required, but might make it very pretty, and pretty is good.

[mizarchivist]

I had thoughts about presentation, actually. I'm hoping that'll work out.
I think most of the ingredients will be universal. I suspect it comes down to proportions and the freshness of the juice.

[catling.livejournal.com]

*nod-nod* There appears to be some variation, but the jist is "booze, primarily rum, and fruit, in large amounts."

Trader Vic's claims to have invented the drink, and that this is the "classic" recipe:
http://www.retroplanet.com/blog/retro-food-and-recipes/retro-tiki-cocktail-scorpion-bowl/

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

I do not have a punch bowl of any kind, and I am going to advocate against them. They are much nicer, presentation wise.

I expect roughly half a dozen pre-school age children on the premises, and it would be easier (IMO) to keep at least MY preschool age children out of the punch if the punch was in pitchers, set far back from the edge of the counter, behind the non-alcoholic drinks.

[catling.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, Madame. mizarchivist and I have got this. Team Scorpion will arrive in T-minus 4.5 hours. *rubs hands together gleefully*

We will make sure that no children or punch bowls are harmed in the making of your Scorpion Bowl.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

Seriously they ought to find a better way to flavor barium sulfate. It will be vile regardless perhaps, but there is no call for it to be quite *that* vile. I vaguely recall making a comment to that effect to an extra cranky ER nurse what I might not want to admit might possibly be over two decades ago. He lacked humor. I hope your medical personnel at least do not share this rather major character flaw.

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

You are the only person I know who can make me smirk and giggle in the midst of a description of how awful your day was. Thank you for writing this. I'm terribly sorry about the barium sulfate; may it be a long time before you are called upon to drink it again, and may you have many good and worthwhile days in between.

*hugs*
Newt

[beth_leonard]

+1

I think I have a broken emotional compass. My fantasies always involved knowing the proper kind of first aid to render in worst-case earthquake scenarios where I was the only one left standing.

--Beth

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

You have an excellent way with words, and deserve real vanilla and no barium sulfate. I send you strength and my icon hands you her star.

[macthud]

Are there any hard liquors you particularly enjoy (or despise), aside from scorpion bowls?

I have a few thoughts along these lines, some for now, and some for later, and hope to go in better than worse direction for you...

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

man, you'd think they'd make them tequilia flavored (add actual tequilia), can't imagine that would affect the tests, except to make someone happier?

mmm. that's probably a good marketing area - good flavored medicines. i know the "bubble gum" antibiotics are a poor thing too (though ferrets and cats seem to lurve it)

#

[naomikritzer]

Just the word "barium" suggests to me that it will taste more disgusting than anyone ever thought possible.

[thenotoriousphd.livejournal.com]

I had to drink the barium stuff recently too. Mine was faux-berry flavor. I agree completely with your assessment about how nasty it is.

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

The quantity of "we have to do this totally nasty shit to you just to figure out how to do more nasty shit" involved in serious illness is hard to believe. Sorry it sucked.

[catling.livejournal.com]

Yaknow, if they are going to make you drink nasty crap like that, they could at least have the decency to not make it worse with fake vanilla flavor. I'm sorry you have to endure this insult to foodies everywhere.

Miss K and I will see you tomorrow. Since mizarchivist already has the scorpion bowls covered (I had asked my bartender boyfriend to give me his best recipe, and was going to pick up ingredients tonight, but I am entirely content just to know that someone has you covered on Scorpion Bowls), I will think of something else to bring of a nummy or pretty nature.

[drwex]

While I find I do not need instructions on how to have fantasies, it delights me when you share yours. I've done the barium thing twice and it was godawful both times. I'm sorry that much more awful stuff hovers in your future.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Yuck. I'm tremendously sorry that you're having to go through all this, and that the necessary X-ray contrast agent is only available as a "slurry". (Has anything pleasant ever been called a slurry?) I hope it all leads to some useful information, anyway.

Keep being awesome.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no idea why that wound up with a cat icon. I think I like it.

[robbbbbb.livejournal.com]

"For the love of all that's holy, I own dozens of ACTUAL vanilla beans, plucked from orchids in the jungle by slave labor - I had hoped that conniving in the oppression of my fellow humans, I could avoid bad fake vanilla forever."

Hey, you're turning into a Republican! Good for you!

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

This comment feels so very wrong, and yet I couldn't help laughing in response to it.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're turning into a Republican! Good for you!

Sorry, hon, not happening. That there was the despairing cry of a secular humanist Occupy protester, finding the world failing to work the way the anti-establishment forces assured her it shouldn't, but did.