I love the taste of napalm in the morning...

This morning was interesting. See, I have this problem with my lower intestines, apparently, and I'm having some surgery soon. I haven't really been bothered, but the doctor says I have to, or I could risk doing nasty things to myself, like sending myself into sepsis. Anyway, one of the prep tests I had to do was "an Upper GI" What does that mean? It means I got to get up, NOT eat or drink anything, not even brush my teeth, and then wait until 10:00 am when they gave my 100mL of a thick, white substance known as Barium. Ring a bell? Barium is an element. You can find out *actual* things about barium here: http://www.scescape.net/~woods/elements/barium.html

Here's the thing - I was really, really bad at chemistry, but I'm pretty certain I remember Mrs. Webster telling us about radioactivity in elements like barium. Then I read something like this...
"All barium compounds that are water or acid soluble are poisonous. Naturally occurring barium is a mixture of seven stable isotopes. Twenty two other radioactive isotopes are known to exist."
I am also relatively sure that the berry flavor was never mentioned.

So I drank a lovely 100mL cocktail of radioactivity this morning. Then I chased it with 350mL, then I waited about 45 minutes and then got to watch them take "fluoros" of my small intestine. And it was...so...freaking...cool! Do you think about your body? Do you think about it as a solid thing? Let me tell you, I was watching my intestines, showing up black in the fluoro thanks to the Barium-mopolitan, swish gently back and forth as they pushed around on my stomach with a very cool lead-lined glove with a paddle attached. My body moves on the inside. All the time! Not just the blood. Basically everything that isn't a bone is moving, shifting, finding it's best home for a moment before I change position and gravity grapples with the confines of my skin.

It's amazing what you can learn about yourself when your body decides that if you won't give it a break, it will just mutinously decide to cut you off at the knees. I kind of wish that I could have seen more of me work under that camera, but that would require, among other things, a whole lot more barium. And while I like the berry flavor all right, I'll admit that I left the doctor's office and stopped at McDonald's for lunch. I figured that I desereved a break today. Plus I wanted to give them my new idea for their milkshakes...