GlucoDex

I wonder if this word would be accepted during my next game of Scrabble... hmmm.. 8 letters, too bad!!!

Last Tuesday, I went to the CLSC for my 26-28 weeks gestational diabetes test. My doctor's prescription had only one word on it: GlucoDex.

Not knowing what to expect and with only instructions to start fasting after supper the night before, I showed up at 7 AM at the clinic...

The clinic has a special waiting room for all patients needing blood/urine tests and so I was directed to that area and picked a number before chosing a seat: 44. I looked up the board to ssee which number was being called out: 03. Looking left and right, I noticed someone holding his prescription for his test and realized I had forgotten to take mine with me. SIGH.

Where was that paper? After emptying the content of my purse twice rather than once, I remembered where I had last seen it: between the cover page and the first page of my notebook, on my desk, at work.

Please note that my office is unconveniently located 45 minutes away from the CLSC, by car...

I juggled with my options and decided to try and make a run for it. I would drive to the office and back and hope that my number (44) has not been called out in the meanwhile...

2 h later, I came back to the clinic and found my number had been called out already so I picked another number but was informed by a secretary that no waiting was necessary for the GlucoDex and that I should just present myself at the counter with my prescription, so I did.

I was given a small bottle of overly sweet juice (reminiscent of Sunny Delight) and told to wait for 60 minutes before they would take my blood.

I sat down and took on a few more pages of The Book of Negroes... (Great book by the way, if you can get passed the first part which depicts stories of horror and violence in a quite graphical manner...)

After 45 minutes of waiting I started to feel uneasy and went to the bathroom... No improvement. I walked a little bit and tried to adopt different positions to stop the nausea... but nothing worked so I decided to start searching for a nurse and see if they could draw my blood already.

I went behind the closed doors and found 3 nurses, one of which stopped her discussion to ask me if I needed something.

"I... think... my hour... of waiting... is almost..."

My knees bent and I held on to the wall for balance as my body was dropping to the floor.

"...over."

I fainted and the 3 nurses had to help me get to a bed and lay down before any blood would be drawn. Apparently, it happens often that pregnant women will faint or throw up as a result of this hyperglycemic test but it does not necessarily mean they have gestational diabetes: the fainting might also result from the long hours of fasting while pregnant.

So, I was given a slice of white bread with margarine and left to rest for a couple of minutes before I got up and drove to work.

The results should be available on my next consultation this Friday. I will keep you posted.