Good morning! I got four hours of sleep, give or take. The insomnia isn't sure how to react to the illness and the constant sleep, so it dropped in last night to make sure I was still paying attention. I tossed and turned and dozed and finally hit my stride just as the alarms went off. There is nothing more healing than a hot shower followed by comfort clothes. Burning eyes and churning stomach, I hustled out into the gray.

What can I get you to drink? I took the shuttle to the Chelsea imaging center for a CT scan of my stomach. I checked in, filled out a few forms, scrawled my signature, handed them back. "And what do you like for a mixer?" the check-in woman asked. "We have orange, cranberry and grape juice." I chose orange, and she handed me a tall plastic cup filled with a sickening blend of citrus and barium.

I picked up my cup and sat myself down in the waiting area. I tried to distract myself from the foul concoction by reading, then by deep breathing, then by holding my nose. I hadn't gotten more than a few sips down when Check-In reappeared to urge me on. "It's like a dye. It makes your insides light up. You have to drink that."

I nodded at her absently, wondering how I would accomplish this without a sudden gag reflex ruining their carpet and my clothes. I talked to myself about will and determination. I wanted desperately to throw the cup on the floor and have a good old-fashioned tantrum about it. "I won't drink this and you can't make me!" I didn't.

Then I found out that the woman sitting next to me had to drink five cups. Sympathy edged with pity was exchanged and I went back to my cup with a wiser eye for my luck.

Hey, can you hear me? Finally, they called me into the back and gave me two of the largest hospital gowns I have ever seen. They were too big to be called johnnies. It was like wearing an entire set of sheets. Thus dubiously attired, I sat down in a little open room off the back hallway to get my IV put in.

The tech, or maybe nurse, was a brisk and friendly woman with a terrific haircut and a slightly worried look when she checked out my veins. Dehydration makes for bleak vascular territory. She stuck me and hit a valve in the vein on the first try. What are the odds? "Are you going to have to re-set that?" I asked, watching her struggle.

"I don't know," she said, "probably. Are you okay?"

I thought about it. "Yeah, I'm just a little light-headed." And then I felt the blood drop out of my head. I broke out in a sweat and opened my mouth to say I'm terribly weak and then the world winked out like an old TV set, rapidly dwindling to one point of light and then off.

I felt myself land on a stretcher, about four pairs of hands on me. Someone lifted my legs toward the ceiling, someone else put a cold cloth on my head, a third paused with an oxygen mask. "I don't think she's gonna need the oxygen. Hey, can you hear me?"

Just like television, I thought, looking up at all the faces looming over me. For a minute I couldn't answer. Then my head got control of my mouth again and I said, "Yeah. What happened?"

To the best of my knowledge, I have passed out twice in my life. The first time was in junior high, when I got my ear pierced and first touched the earring. They had to do the other ear with me sitting on the floor because of their insurance and associated problems with thirteen-year-olds fainting headfirst off bar stools.

And now today. The doctor tried to explain that it was a vascular reaction and that it just happens sometimes. The tech looked like I'd scared about ten years off her life. I felt like I'd had a near-death experience. It was surreal.

Breathe in. Hold your breath. They scanned me. A General Electric CT scanner looks like a giant toilet seat. The robot voice coming from the speakers, coupled with the table moving beneath me, lent a Logan's Run feel to the situation. The room was freezing. That's all she wrote.

I changed out of the sheets into my comfort clothes, thanked everyone for saving my life, caught a shuttle back to the city. How embarrassing.

How's early next week? The gastroenterologist is a pleasant man with an unpleasant job. We had a talk. He had a look at my CT scan and a look at me. I'll spare you the details.

There are four lymph nodes around my stomach visible on the CT scan. This is not normal. This is not terrifyingly abnormal, a sudden swerve off the paved road and into dark forests of cancer, but it's not normal. I don't understand a thing beyond that.

Next Tuesday, they're dropping a camera into my stomach on a tube. That much I know. In the meanwhile, I am instructed not to take Prilosec or Zantac or anything like them. I have no appetite. I swear I'm financing Pepto Bismol.

Tangent: I just checked the bottle. It's Proctor & Gamble I'm financing. I hate P & G. I need a politically correct pepto, people. Anyone? Bueller?

So next Tuesday it is. I'm trying not to think about it.

The universal language of Slushies. A thin, underage driver in a gypsy cab took me from the hospital into the traffic and freezing rain. The teenager behind the wheel didn't speak English and didn't know my street. I named a few others nearby. He shrugged at me helplessly. I thought about it.

"You know where the convenience store is? It's off that street."

His eyes lit up with understanding and he drove me home.