The DoD - Donut of Destruction

[Note: This story originated in 2016. Jack Rackham is fine.]

So let's see: my CAT scan went great, I'm incredibly healthy, and my stomach hurts a bit. A few pounds less raw cookie dough per day, I guess. I'll up my exercise! I'll eat raw broccoli! It's gonna be great, and I'm never going to need another CAT scan.

...but just for shits and 'gigs, let's discuss your first CAT scan.

Pretty much every visit to the doctor is a reverse lottery. You dump a lot of cash into it and you go in with the hope that you will get NOTHING. Also, the prize is literally anything from a simple scratch-off to DEATH.

It all starts with a CONTRAST MEDIUM.  That sounds pretty innocuous, but really what they're giving you is almost a FULL LITER of a disgusting, creamy, hideous substance that looks very inappropriate -- not unlike a giant Coke bottle full of yesterday's lovemaking.

Now, as you know, I work at a chimpanzee sanctuary. That means I know quite a bit about bananas. For example, the 'artificial' banana flavor you get in anything banana flavored is designed to taste like a strain called Gros Michel - a very popular banana in the 1960's, but not frequently found today -- except in places like Hawaii - far, far away from the mainland, myself, and my stomach.

I told you that so I could tell you this: I was given a liter of disgusting, thick, clingy, white BANANA flavored shit. And you have to drink ALL of that two and a half hours before you go into your appointment.

Oh, they have other flavors -- vanilla, which I'm told is quite a light and pleasant flavor, cherry, mint, or even the oft sought after CHOCOLATE. Any number of other DELICIOUS flavors that I would be happy to consume. But they only have... banana.

I should add this congealed goop is BARIUM, something on the periodic table I associate with warp drives and proton torpedoes, not something I associate with a shake from a trendy 60's diner, and most assuredly not with the inner lining of my large intestine and colon.

So I chugged this stuff, occasionally retching at the awful, awful flavor that gets completely stuck in my throat like a giant glob of banana flavored phlegm oozing down my throat.

Once you've endured that, you get to go in to the doctor's office, where you wait in a room with a bunch of other people who look like they caught death.

But, this isn't just a doctor's office, it's really a line of people waiting to get a CAT scan, so everyone there has some very serious issue, and has to be dressed in such a way that they can easily whip off whatever almost clothing they have on.  In other words, everyone is dressed in sweatpants -- and they're nervous and perspiring. This means the entire place looks and smells like it's filled with hobos. Sick, sick hobos. And you feel bad about yourself and life.

When they finally do call your name, you're pretty sure you have cancer, but in reality, you're sort of wishing you were already dead.

So they take you to a giant metallic donut. I dressed wisely, so I didn't have to change my clothes. You sit on a little bed that goes back and forth, in and out of the donut, and they give you a saline feed, which means porking your arm. I had no problem with this. Everything up until this point has been worse than the arm porking. I can deal with it.

Then the operator of the donut BOLTS OUT OF THE ROOM and gets behind a giant lead wall, because even though it's okay for your balls to get irradiated, it's not cool for them, in particular, I guess. And then the table moves you back and forth into and out of the donut.

The donut begins to speak to you in a robot donut voice designed to sound, I assume, as commanding as General Rumsfeld and as soothing as Enya.  "HOLD YOUR BREATH!" The donut says emphatically. The donut says this in such a way that YOU'D BETTER NOT FUCK AROUND. Then the donut tells you to breathe. Then it tells you to HOLD YOUR FUCKING BREATH AGAIN, and you do. And the table moves back and forth.

Then the operator comes back from the lead wall and tells you they have to do it a second time. She switches the saline drip to IODINE, which I thought was used for cleaning wounds and SCRUBBING SURGICAL EQUIPMENT. 

Sure. Fire that shit up and pump it into my goddamn blood stream. What have I got to lose? I'm just in the middle of receiving (and these numbers are accurate) 10,000 times the radiation you get from one chest x-ray. That's more radiation than you generally get in 3 YEARS, and increases your odds of receiving the blessed gift of cancer (you're looking for stuff like that here at the CAT scan -- remember?) by .05%. so if you were at .3% odds, you're now at .35% odds of getting cancer. THANKS SCIENCE! 

Fine. Iodine is fine.*

So the operator plugs you into the iodine, and that feels WEIRD. First, it's warm. it feels warm in your neck, then in your arms, and then it feels like you have just shit your pants. I had not shit my pants, but I was very concerned until later that I had filled my pants with a giant scoop of banana flavored dung.

So you go in, and the donut talks to you, and at this point, you just want the donut to hold it's own goddamn breath and go fuck itself (though really, going in and out of the donut, it feels like the donut is fucking YOU).

And then you're done. You're supposed to drink a lot, and all the nurses warn you that pretty soon you may experience 'URGENCY' or 'LOOSE BOWELS' or 'MAY SQUIRT LAVA BANANA PARTICLES OUT AT BARIUM POWERED LARGE HADRON COLLIDER SPEEDS.

So I went home, where I could be nearer to my beloved toilet and away from radiation donuts and banana flavored baby batter shit.

The worst part is, despite all that radiation, there is virtually NO CHANCE of receiving super powers. No laser vision. No immortality. No mind reading. Not even some lesser power like the ability to speak to possums. Just terrible cancer when you're old. Not my super favorite!

*tastes better than banana flavored barium, and probably more drinkable, too!!!**

**Do not attempt.