davidgillon: Text: You can take a heroic last stand against the forces of darkness. Or you can not die. It's entirely up to you" (Heroic Last Stand)
[personal profile] davidgillon
... colonoscopies with just gas and air**, that is.
So I did a bowel cancer screening kit a few weeks back (I guess I'm at the right age for these things now we're on David 6.0) and it popped for blood in the sample, so they wanted a closer look.
I had the pre-screening a week ago Monday and was actually offered an appointment on the Thursday - 'Because we just had a cancellation, not because it's urgent' the nurse emphasised. But that didn't work out because the prep would have clashed with the funeral I was at on the Wednesday, so this Thursday it was.
It probably wouldn't have been so bad for most people, but apparently I have several more turns in my bowel than most people do, and they all needed inflating to give the endoscope room to work, to the point I couldn't really breathe deeply enough to get the full value of the entonox. Ow.
I was hoping to get away totally clean, I suspected the problem was a side-effect of my painkillers, but apparently they did find one polyp, which they terminated with extreme prejudice. It's off for tests, but unlikely to be a problem according to the specialist nurse, answers in a week or a fortnight.
I'm pretty much back to normal now, but to tell you how inflated I was, when I got dressed afterwards, I couldn't fasten my belt.

TLDR: probably not a problem

* But probably not wise to avoid.

** I could have had sedation, but only if I had someone to drive me home and keep an eye on me overnight, which I couldn't arrange

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David Gillon

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