Friday 15th was a great day for so many people…especially the little people celebrating Children in Need with school. Up early and face painting done they bounced down to school.
I wasn’t bouncing having not eaten since Wednesday evening & having consumed 2 sachets of Magnesium plus 10 Senna tablets there was literally nothing left inside me.
The Mr joined me for my day of invasive tests in Oxford…which started with more blood tests, followed by a visual Cervical examination…apparently even though I was going to be having the dreaded Colonsocopy that afternoon they still needed to visually examine my ahem…well…you know…..and trust me after said laxatives this was not something I was particularly comfortable with.
I survived.
So Churchill hospital done we needed to head over to the Manor hospital for the brain scan….only to be called and advised that the sensor on the roof had broken and the CT Machine wasn’t working…”will call you to reschedule for later today”.
So we head over to the 3rd hospital – the John Radcliffe for the Nasal Endoscopy….The Mr took a great picture of the moment the Nose Doctor was feeding the tube up inside my nose & down my throat…you can even see the screen behind me where he can visually spot anything of concern. It was a hideous sensation & made me snuffly for about 20 minutes afterwards….thankfully as far as he was concerned – nothing to report.
And then it was the turn of the dreaded bum exam.
The Bum Doc (aka Dr Simon Leedham) was a really nice man who totally put me at ease in a situation that I found quite mentally traumatic.
The “invasiveness” of the procedure was softened considerably by the sedatives that allow you to remain conscious & communicative…but not as actually aware of the procedure as you might imagine.
The Colonscopy is done to see if there are any polyps growing in the colon and remove them – these are common in all peoples colon’s but could cause problems when on the drug. They found 1 normal polyp – so with a magical blade this was removed and bottled for testing.
I was lying on my side throughout the procedure so I could see the TV monitor feed from the camera. Bizarrely this actually helps to distract from what is actually going on & it is quite fascinating to see inside your body.
Unfortunately, The Bum Doc also found several flat lesions lining my colon …these he was not expecting…and he certainly did not to expect find 5 of them.
2 were too big to remove during this procedure so biopsies were taken from them for testing. The other 3 were removed by injecting a blue dye underneath them which causes them to bubble up from the surface where they are then able to be shaved off.
Flat lesions are not rare…but they are not common. They are considered to be pre cursors to Colon Cancer – they can become sinister if they are not removed. This throws so many questions up…why wasn’t this detected on the CT Scan, is this a spread of Melanoma or was I potentially about to get a completely separate Cancer? Are they cancerous already and if so what does it mean to my access to the trial?
No matter what the answer – I will be seen again….but hopefully just for a routine Colonoscopy during the trial.
1 hour & 45 minutes later The Mr & I head home…the CT Scan machine wasn’t fixed so I have to go back for that part next week.
The trial is supposed to start in a week…so time is of the essence & good results are now crucial.