I have also been due for another diagnostic, a colonoscopy, which I finally had about a week ago. I never had one when all the nonsense started. They tried the day after I was first diagnosed, but the tumor made it impossible (early blog post on that, tons of fun). I had a sigmoidoscopy but it was primarily to get a tumor sample for pathology.
And so, there I was, post-treatment, cancer-free, talking about when I could have surgery to get me back to normal anatomically, and lo and behold I've never had a colonoscopy! So I had one. They can do this via the ostomy and it's actually much simpler. However I got really lucky and they checked me out from both directions. I am now a master of conscious sedation, by which I mean no safe amount of "sleepy medicine" puts me to sleep anymore. I was a bit out of it, but pretty aware of everything, for better or worse.
Thankfully everything was for the better. My prep was good, everything looked fine, except for one slightly suspicious area in the hepatic flexure, where the ascending colon turns right and becomes the transverse colon (by the liver). The surgeon doing my procedure took a sample but told me she wasn't overly concerned.
I wasn't overly concerned 17 months ago when my stomach issues started, so I wasn't all warm and fuzzy with this. I wasn't overly anxious either but was leaving for vacation (where I am now), knowing I wouldn't get results for a few days, and it was hard not to think about it. Here on vacation the wifi is spotty. I can get email usually - and got the "you have a new test result" from the patient portal this morning - but websites and such are hit or miss. We were busy vacationing all day so I didn't try logging into the portal until a few minutes ago, but it was a miss, over and over again. Luckily the resort has one public computer for guest use and I was able to connect there. The result:
"Colonic mucosa within normal limits."
Great big sigh of relief. Back to vacation!
No comments:
Post a Comment