Well, the gastroscopy I handled by telling myself that I had already birthed 3 kids, and this couldn't be worse. In my darkest moments I can still feel the little beggar rooting around my stomach and then having a quick peek in the old duodenum. All this to find I had nothing wrong except the slight hiatus hernia, which I already knew about from the barium meal 12 years previously.

The barium meal. Now there's a nice one where they make you drink something to blow you up, and then open out the passages, and also the gunk itself to show up on screen. They then tip you in all sorts of ways which, when you feel your belly's about to explode ain't too comfortable. And afterwards? Make sure you have Dyna-Rod's number!

Childbirth? That was ok I suppose except for about 10 minutes after bearing #2 with no stitches (yay!) the midwife says she needs to give me a quick internal as the monitor clip for the heartbeat, which had been attached to the baby's head, had caught me as she came out and she needed to see what damage, if any, had been done. And would I PLEASE just try and keep my backside still and on the bed! Oh good, It's just a scratch!

Andrea

whose sister-in-law is married to a consultant Gastro-Enterologist, (speciality Gastroscopies and Endoscopies, which is what we Brits call the camera inserted where the sun don't shine). No he didn't do mine. They live in Scotland, not Yorkshire. I had the barium meal in South Africa.