*Please note: there are
no photographs shown here, that would be far too much and way too personal. When I researched the procedure, I did not easily find personal accounts of what happens, and that is the only reason I am writing this account (otherwise I'd bury it in silence). If I had had a better knowledge of the entire process, it would have helped. This is why I described my experience of it:
We are a photographed world. To all my photographic representations, I can now add photos of my esophagus, stomach and colon. Bizarre, to say the least. All squeaky clean after the great purge of the previous few days, which was not any fun at all. If you like gritty details, read on.
You do not eat anything the day before the procedure and you begin the purge by taking specific laxatives. The box says, "Gentle, predictable overnight relief.' Ha. I had to take 3 Bisacodyl tablets at 2 O'Clock that day, the first day of fasting. The sheets of instructions from my doctor, a Gastroentrologist, indicated the pills would bring on a 'movement' one to six hours later. You tell me how you can sleep through the night in that amount of time. For me, they took 5 hours. More gritty detail? Shall I continue?
Originally my family doctor referred me to a Gastroentrologist because I have suffered from heartburn most of my life, and control it through diet. Mostly I don't eat after 6pm if I hope to sleep at midnight. Meaning I eat my main meal at lunch and that's about it. As I grow older I find I don't need as much food as I used to. I did gain some weight a few years back when there was one of those 'step-downs' of the metabolism and decided I preferred my life-long weight, and so cut back on carbohydrates, removed all sugar from my diet, and kept my night-time snacking to a minimum. No more donuts! Or butter tarts! And, actually, after about a year without sugar, I found I no longer liked the taste of sugar-sweet. Even the occasional pieces of cake to celebrate various birthdays are not as tasty as they used to be. I could make an exception for warm blueberry pie and a pure quality vanilla ice cream, though! Still, one piece of pie suffices, and if no-one is around to finish the pie, I'll eventually toss it in the organic recycling bin. It's that bad! Yes you can lose your taste for sugar.
In the quest to understand my particular complaint, the good doctor said he would like to do a esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), which is running a tube down the esophagus and into the stomach with a camera on the end of it. While I wasn't keen on an EGD, I knew it might help me figure out the incessant heart-burn. Then he suggested, 'While we're at it, why don't I also do a colonoscopy.' Oh, yuk. 'That's going to be very uncomfortable, isn't it?' Would the good doctor deny that? Of course, 'No, it's not that bad at all. You're fully sedated.' And thus the conversation went.
I chose to have the colonoscopy because, 1) he said it was a procedure that is only done every 10 years; and 2) I have known three people with colon cancer - two of them died; the third is on chemo. The worst thing with this type of cancer is you often don't know you have it until it is too late and it has spread to other organs. My Gastroentrologist said that colon cancer is one of the easiest to detect and that it develops slowly. It begins as polyps in the colon, which are normal, especially as you age, and usually stay benign and grow very slowly. If these normally-occurring polyps become cancerous it is a slow process that takes years. In a colonoscopy, if any polyps are detected, they can easily be removed. This is the reason a colonoscopy can be done every 10 years as a safety precaution.
At the prescribed time on the evening prior to the procedure, at 8pm, an hour after the Bisacodyl tablets took effect, I quickly drank a solution of one litre of water (I treated myself to Evian spring water) and a sachet of PegLyte. Well, actually, Klean.Prep since I couldn't find any PegLyte despite long walks to three pharmacies in the area. Klean.Prep describes itself as a "Peg electrolyte solution for gastrointestinal lavage." (Wikipedia tells us that "Gastric lavage, also commonly called stomach pumping or gastric irrigation, is the process of cleaning out the contents of the stomach.") It's a word to describe cleaning or rinsing. By the next day I was joking, between visits to the bathroom, that I was 'fully washed out.'
Ok. The Ped electrolyte is not fun. It's rather the opposite. Vile stuff, and, well, since I don't eat much to begin with, and had last eaten Wednesday afternoon, there really wasn't much except itself to purge. I slept okay Thursday night, and on waking Friday morning, had another litre of the Ped electrolyte solution. It made me quite sick and I only drank about three quarters of it. Another woman at the clinic had had to drink 2 litres of it the two designated times (she had a different procedure to mine), and she had thrown it up Friday morning, and I thought that was lucky. I wish I'd thrown it up as I really don't think I needed such a strong dose for my size and the fact I had not eaten solid food in nearly 2 days. I honestly felt I'd been given instructions to 'cleansing solutions' to fell a 250lb man's digestive system. I was told after my 'procedure' that next time they could give me a 'gentler preparation.' Well, that's good to know!
Nothing but clear liquids the morning of the 'procedure.' No black coffee or tea even, only that litre of Ped electrolyte for breakfast, which took effect late morning. And it was truly wicked. My system, according to the good doctor, was uber clean, and well, I should say so! Unfortunately, the Ped electrolyte kept working into the late night and is still, albiet not with as much gusto, cleaning my system today. I would recommend asking for an amount adjusted for your size and weight if you get this procedure. The one-size gets all can be quite over-done on a smaller woman.
In the operating room, I was asked to lie on my side, then a not uncomfortable plastic thing was put in my mouth to prevent me from biting and tied around my head (yes, I wondered too), along with an oxygen mask, and an IV tube was attached to an IV needle that had been previously inserted into my wrist. Oh, the doctor had been singing to a song playing on the radio when I was wheeled in. He has a good voice. The nurse had joked that he was singing 'a girly song,' which made us all laugh. She said, 'A singing doctor is a happy doctor.'
When I came to, I was lying in a recuperation area and my son was there. The sedation was remarkably entire. I don't remember a thing of the tubes and cameras, thankfully. An Anaesthetist had been at the procedure, so I think I may had some general anaesthetic too.
While I was quite weak from the medication, I had, naturally, to rise and lurch, with the aid of the nurse, to the bathroom. That Peg electrolyte was still working. Damn stuff. There was quite bad abdominal pain that I was told was air in my system from the procedure. After a few trips to the bathroom, I managed to clear enough of the 'air' to decrease the pain. The nurse said that even small women have the same length of colon that large people do, and that therefore it's stretched more during the procedure and that's why I was in pain, and that it would pass. After about half an hour of a few trips to the bathroom, and getting dressed, I was given tea and some cookies. They tasted awful, which was sad since I was really hungry.
When the doctor arrived with the print-out of the photographs taken of the inside of me, he said he'd found a very small polyp near the end of the colon and had removed it. There was a little pale bleeding. And because of that little polyp, I have to have another colonoscopy done in not 10 years, but in 5 years. At least I'll know what to expect.
After we left, my son and I walked for a few blocks before hailing an empty cab. I was weak and had trouble walking; pain in my gut quite bad. I had to ask the taxi driver to stop after a few minutes as I dashed out and threw up on the edge of the sidewalk. So embarrassing! That reaction, apparently, was due to the sedation medication.
At home, yes, I went to the bathroom. Then I made some earl grey tea and my son bought me a falafel sandwich, which, I tell ya, was the best falafel I have ever had. It was thoroughly delicious. Later I made some scrambled eggs with Rowe's sausages (Rowe farms is a free-range, hormone-free, pesticide-free farm in Southern Ontario). Nothing like breaking a fast to enjoy the true gourmet feast even the simplest food is.
The damn Peg electrolyte kept working, though. On nothing. It kept working on nothing like it had the entire day. Irritating stuff. I worried that the 'cleansing' had begun a bout of gastro and that I wouldn't be able to eat the next day. Thankfully, that is not the case.
And, as memento, to remember it all, I have strange little photographs of the insides of my beautiful organs.
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