Me and my Colonoscopy

Do you see in my intro where I state that I sometimes post "on other topics"? Consider this one of those times where I break out of the norm and provide a Public Service Announcement.

Last week I had a colonoscopy.

I'm here to tell you it's not as bad as it sounds.

When my doctor ordered a colonoscopy I didn't want anyone to know at first. It's embarrassing. But then I did and it was amazing how many other people admitted to having had one, too.  Knowing there were others like me--ordinary everyday people of all ages--who'd undergone the procedure, took a large part of the fear and stigma away.

If you're not interested in the details, read no further. Monday the blog goes back to talking about books. Come again then.

For those of you who are, here is how it happened for me.

Most doctors recommend a routine colonoscopy for all patients fifty years of age or older because cancers and pre-cancerous polyps are more frequent for this age group.

I'm not quite there yet. My situation involved finding blood in the stool. Blood in the stool can be caused by a lot of things that are NOT cancer, but the only way to know for sure is to go in there and take a look.

The first step is to clean out the colon. For me, this was a two day procedure that required drinking four liters (one gallon) of water mixed with something called Fortrans.

Four liters is a lot of water. And though it didn't taste terrible, it didn't taste good, either. A couple glasses was fine but after that it got hard to get down. I managed to swallow the required first two liters on day one, but only got through one liter on day two. I was seriously gagging. This was by far the worse part. The elimination was gentle and I never once felt out of control of my bowels or was in any kind of pain.

I went to the clinic on day two. The professionals there tested my heart and took an ultra-sound of my stomach. All was well, thankfully.

The next part, though not glamourous, was easy. I removed my clothing from the waist down and put on a robe. The nurse led me to the table where the procedure would take place. I hopped on. The anistethiologist put an IV needle in my arm (a slight pinch) and the doctor told me to lay on my side.

Next thing I knew, they were telling me to wake up. I'd slept through the whole thing.

I'll mention here that my husband had one done right after me. His only took twenty minutes. Mine took a little longer because my colon was a little trickier to navigate for some reason, and they found a polyp the size of a wad of gum. I had to go back the next day to have it removed.

Fortunately that didn't require drinking Fortrans water. I even could eat a little soup and protein. The next day I went back. Fell asleep and woke up twenty minutes later with polyp removed. I was up and walking the mall with friends an hour later.

I'm sharing this because I know more people should be having their colons checked out. A big reason is because it doesn't sound like a good time, and everyone is so busy, it's easy to put it off. But I can tell you that it's worth it. I'm more than a little relieved to know everything is set to right in my colon and that I don't have cancer sneaking around in there.

So there it is.  Colonoscopy--go have one.