Today I had to endure a 3-hour-long glucose tolerance test at my ObGyn's office. I had a 1-hour test done a few weeks ago, which I just barely failed, and so I earned myself the opportunity to participate in the extra-long version of the test. Not pleasant. For those who may not know what a glucose tolerance test is like, allow me to explain. First, I was given strict instructions not to eat or drink anything besides water after midnight the night before my scheduled test. The next morning, as I was starving and desperately craving a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I went in to my doctor's office, where I was handed an 8oz. bottle of neon orange glucose-laden liquid and informed that I had 5 minutes to consume it. The stuff wasn't nearly as awful as I had expected. It tasted like a melted version of one of those cheap "freezer pops" that come in the plastic wrappers. After that, I was handed a timer with the instructions not to eat or drink anything, not to leave, and to come straight back when the timer went off. So I sat in the waiting room with my mom, who graciously agreed to come keep me company, for the designated hour until my timer started beeping, signaling the end of the test (this was my initial test, of course). They drew some blood and sent me on my way, assuring me I would have the results in a couple of days. Approximately a week and a half later, after 2 phone calls and an email to the doctor's office in search of the promised results, I found out that I failed. They were looking at my blood sugar level, which they want to be less than 130 at the end of the test. Mine was 138. And so, those 8 measly points bought me another test, only this one was 3 times as fun because it lasted for 3 hours. I initally went in to have it done last Thursday, and my wonderful husband took off from work to come pass the time with me. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing when we went in, since I had already done the mini version. Little did I know... When I went back to drink my liquid sugar, I was handed a larger bottle of "juice," with twice the glucose content of the previous one, and this time it was fruit punch flavor. Still feeling optimistic, I downed it in the allotted 5 minutes, and returned to the waiting room where Charles and I were prepared to pass the 3 hours with reading and Sudoku for me, and paper-grading for him. Approximately 30 minutes into the test, my confidence started wavering a bit. My head felt funny and I was suddenly reminded what morning sickness had felt like. Thinking I might feel a little better if I got up and walked around for a minute, I went into the bathroom and promptly threw up the entire bottle of red glucose drink. Unpleasant, but I felt much better afterwards. Unfortunately, because I was unable to keep it down for at least an hour, I was forced to reschedule my test and endure the entire routine all over again. I was pretty bummed, but I'm pretty sure Charles was glad not to have spend 3 hours sitting in the waiting room. Can't say I was entirely disappointed about that either. Since he had already taken the day off, we got to spend the rest of the morning and afternoon getting some errands done that we hadn't had time for lately, which was nice. And so, this morning I once again took my growling stomach in to the OB's office for round 2 (or 3, depending on how you look at it). I had hoped they would let me have the orange flavor again, but unfortunately I had to endure the dreaded fruit punch flavor again. I had a little harder time getting it down this time, no doubt because of my looming fear of seeing it again, but managed to succeed in the allotted time frame. My mom came with me again this time, so she and I went out to the waiting room, made ourselves comfortable on one of the couches, and hoped for the best. Thankfully, I was able to keep everything down this time, and had my hourly blood tests drawn without incident. Now I just have to wait for the results. Hopefully I will get them in a more timely manner this time. I have an appointment with my doctor on Thursday, so I figure surely by then I should know something. Hopefully it will be good!