Friday, December 14, 2012

The Final Frontier.

Source

Aren't you excited to read this?

I bet you are.

I'm gonna give you a play-by-play on what to expect should you ever need to have a colonoscopy.

First off, you need to know that the preparation is the worst part of the whole thing.  If you can get through that, it's smooth sailing.  When I had my first scope done in 2011 I was feeling extremely anxious, so I did a bunch of research.  A phrase that stuck with me was that the prep was "an indignity best suffered alone".  

Boy oh boy, is that ever true.


Last time I sent my family away for the evening.  I don't remember what they did, but I have vivid traumatic memories of what I was doing.  I had to drink 2 gallons of water mixed with some horrific powder that tasted and smelled of burning salted plastic.  The instructions I was given were to drink 1 cup of this vile solution every 10 minutes.  

I dare you to try to drink 2 gallons of even your favourite drink that way.

I think when it finally started working it had less to do with the laxative effect and more to do with the fact that my entire digestive system was packed full of this stuff and it had to go somewhere.

It was awful, I was gagging the entire time.  Not having my family witness my reaction to all of this was quite a blessing actually.

This time, I was prescribed a different prep.  I learned when I tried to fill the prescription at the pharmacy that it wasn't covered under either my or my husband's drug plans.  So I had to pay cash for it.  Something about that feels like adding insult to injury.

I was on a clear-fluid only diet after breakfast that morning.  I had to take 4 laxative tablets at 2pm, then mix a sachet of powder with 150ml of water and drink that, followed by 4 cups of any clear fluid over the next 2 hours.  About 6 hours later, I had another sachet of powder to mix and drink, followed by another 4 cups of clear fluid.

The powder smelled and tasted like some sort of artificially sweetened mutant orange tang.  It wasn't delicious, but it was a heck of a lot easier to get down than the other stuff.  Looked disgusting though, and when you stirred it, it got hot for some reason.

My yummy drink.

Although the paper work said it would start to work within 2-4 hours, it kicked in within 5 minutes for me.  Who knows if that's because my system is already messed up.  I did laugh about the instructions in the pamphlet to "make sure you have access to a toilet during treatment".

The next few hours were pretty predictable.  It involved a lot of dashing to the bathroom.  The purpose of the prep is to get your system all sparkly clean so the camera can see what's going on.  So by the end of it, you're passing nothing but mostly clear liquid.  If you've never experienced peeing out of your butt, well, you're not really missing much.

Since the second dose of the drink was taken so close to my bedtime, I had a bit of difficulty settling down for sleep.  But by 1am the worst of it was over.  I slept fairly well, starting to wake at 5am again with needing to use the washroom.

Breakfast was some white cranberry juice, then I could have nothing by mouth until after my procedure at 1pm.  I filled up my time shopping for slippers that I could wear at the hospital.  I ended up taking the bus there, as I couldn't drive myself back after being sedated.

Arriving at the hospital, I start the long waiting process.  They check you in, you wait.  They give you stuff to change into, then you wait.  They call you in to insert your IV, then you wait.  All in all, I waited about an hour.

The worst part of the hospital stuff was the way I was systematically stripped of all of my dignity.  It seems that staff there are not so aware of the experience from a patient's perspective (or maybe if they are, they're just desensitized to it).  I remember feeling this way last time as well.

The worst for me is always the fact that you have to strip down completely when you put on the hospital gown.  I asked before why I couldn't keep on at least my bra, as they were not going to be working anywhere near that area.  They said it was in case there was an emergency and they had to access my heart.  Ok, I guess, but the level of dignity I would feel if they just allowed me to keep that one article on would have made a huge difference.

Next is the fact that you're supposed to put all your clothing and belongings in a giant plastic bag, which you then tote around with you from waiting room to waiting room.  The idea is to ensure that you have all your stuff with you the entire time, so it stays safe.  But it's just another subtle message that can be interpreted in a dehumanizing way.  Your stuff is trash.

This is *my* trash!  Hands off!
After the waiting, when it's your turn to see the doctor, they call you into the room.  There's a stretcher, some flat screened monitors, a table and some other medical stuff.  What looks like a hose is hanging on a hook (it's not a hose of course, it's the scope).  They ask you what procedure you're there for (haha, wouldn't that be a surprise if you made it all the way to that point and then they accidentally gave you a colonoscopy!), and then settle you on the stretcher, knees up against your stomach.  Your gown is nicely arranged around your butt, exposing it to everyone in the room (a doctor, a nurse, and a resident in my case).  Then you get the meds (they use 2 different kinds, explained to me as one to make you sleepy, one to make your memory blurry).

From what I understand, many people fall asleep and don't remember any of the procedure.  Me, well, I'm way too stubborn for that.  I have a bit of an irrational fear of people doing weird things to me while I'm sedated, so I fight it like crazy.  I gave them the heads up this time that I wanted to stay awake, so I don't think they gave me as much as last time.

Suddenly it's all happening.  I watch it all on one of the monitors.  As the scope loops its way through my intestines, it reminds me of my babies rolling around in the later stages of my pregnancies.  Which isn't a bad feeling, really.  At some point I turned my head and sighed.  The doctor asked me if I was bored, and I'm not sure what I answered but it struck me as a funny joke. Once in a while, when the scope hit a place where the curves are sharper, there is some pain.  I make faces, the nurse notices and pushes on my belly to help guide the scope.  They take biopsies (which is a bit surreal to watch) and then it's over.

I ask some questions about their findings, the doctor says that there is inflammation up to 30cms in, a big difference from last year when it was only 5cms in.  I'll get more of an understanding at my follow up appointment next week, as well as (hopefully) the results from the biopsies.  So it's not my imagination that things are getting worse, something that feels validating and discouraging all at the same time.

But now it's done, and it's time for planning for next steps.  I have a consult with a naturopath next week as well, and I'm hoping that something they can offer me makes more sense than just taking different and stronger meds.

Until then....business as usual.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Surprise!


I wish that I could tell you all that I've not been writing here because things have continued to be great for me.


They haven't.

I haven't been writing here because I've been CRAZY busy.  Maybe also because I get tired of spending so much of my focus on my bathroom habits. 

But whatever.

So, long story short, things are back to crappy.

(Side note, I've really been realizing how many scatological terms I use in every day conversation.  "What a crappy day", "This is crap", etc.  Makes me wonder if I was destined to have this condition all along, or maybe that I "put it out into the Universe unconsciously" like they talked about in that weird book "The Secret".  Food for thought.)

Not as crappy as they were in the summer time, mind you.  I'm managing pretty well, despite making many more trips to the bathroom than ought to be possible given the volume of food that I consume.  I need to plan my driving routes carefully in order to be near enough to a gas station or coffee shop in case I need to stop half-way to my destination (which I generally do, especially in the mornings on my way to work).

But mostly I wasn't minding because I knew I had a specialist appointment coming up in December.  I don't know what I really thought would happen at that appointment, maybe that I'd tell him about my awful experiences throughout the summer and he'd say something like "OH!  Well, I know exactly what will help!".  And then write me a prescription for a spa day or something.  

Clearly, I hadn't really thought it through.

In reality, what happened went like this:

Him: Hello, how are you?
Me: Good, thanks.  You?
Him: Good thanks.  So how have things been since we last saw each other?
Me: Awful. Booo hooo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!!!

Well, that took me by surprise!  Where the hell did all those tears come from?  Not the dab the corner of your eyes demurely with a tissue kind of tears, but the full out running out of your eyes and nose kind of tears.  The poor man, he didn't look like he had a clue what to do with me so he just started avoiding eye contact and leafing through my chart.

After a few minutes of clarifying questions from him, a few minutes of swallowing sobs from me, lots more leafing through my chart and several confused sounding "hmmmmm"s, he comes up with this:

Him: Well, this is concerning indeed.
Me: (nodding)
Him:  Your last scope was in June of 2011?
Me: (shrugging and nodding)
Him: Well, I think we need to do another one.
Me: (nodding)

(Why the hell am I so damn agreeable?!!)

Him: (nodding)
Me:  Um, do you (sniff) have a sense for (snerk) time frame?
Him: Well, I can check on that.
Me: Last time I waited for a year.
Him: A year?
Me: Yep.
Him: Well, let me check the scheduling and we'll see what we can get done.  But I am concerned so I think it will be sooner than a year.

He leaves.  I try (and mostly fail) to compose myself.

A few minutes later he returns.  

Him: Well, it's not a year...
Me: (echoing stupidly) not a year...
Him: How about Thursday.
Me: Thursday?  Like in 2 days?
Him: Yep.  And then we'll get you in for the results before the holidays.
Me: (silence, while I'm trying to wrap my head around what this all will mean for my schedule.  And then I realize...) I don't know if I can find someone to pick me up.
Him: (silence)
Me: Umm, never mind, I'll figure it out (oh damn, there are the tears again)
Him: (back to avoiding eye contact and rifling through paperwork) Ok, well here are the forms, take them to the reception and she'll book you in.
Me: (back to being agreeable) Ok.  Sorry for crying.

And then I left.  But I was still quite fragile until almost the end of the day.  Not because I have to have the scope, I've done that before.  But because it was such a rush.  Because it took me by surprise.  Because maybe things are worse than before.

As always, I try to find an angle that will make me laugh about the whole situation.  At work, we have an annual staff appreciation day.  I often laugh about how it's positioned as a "mandatory staff appreciation day", like they need to make it mandatory for the staff to show up or something.  Anyway, I joke about how far I would go to get out of it -- just on principle.  Like "Ha!  I won't allow you to force me to be appreciated!"

This year?  It falls on Thursday.  

Take THAT system, I WIN!!