Bowel Screening

So I went to, then they made me an appointment to go in for my colonoscopy which again I was made very, very settled and welcome when I arrived very early in the morning at the hospital. They prepared me and made sure that I couldn't have any, I was told I'd not got to have anything to eat or drink on the morning. And they, it went quite, quite well actually, I was most surprised that there was a television screen and I could see it even happening and watching what was happening and which really, reassured me a lot. But then the specialist did say there was a slight, a slight blip on my bowel in one position and I could see the little thing like a lasso go round and nip it off. He told me it would be sent away for analysis, lo and behold within days I received a letter to say that it was non-malignant. And I have since have a back up, from, from the specialist to say that he didn't think I would need another test now for at least two years.
 

Please would you go through in detail then what happened actually on the day of the colonoscopy?

My colonoscopy was scheduled for 2 o clock, I arrived at the hospital about 1.30 and sure enough around 2 o clock I was called into the day care room. I was met by a male nurse who was very pleasant, really pleasant. Made me feel at ease and told me what he wanted me to do which was to take my clothes off and I would put the cloak on that they provided and he would then give me a sedative, just a little prick in the back of my hand and then I would go through to the surgery room where I met the doctor who was very pleasant, very pleasant. The nurses made me feel really at ease, they were actually terrific. And I was asked different questions.

Did you sign a consent form?

I actually signed a consent form yes before I went through there and I was just asked, I was told about it, what they were going to do and I was very relaxed, they made me feel very relaxed. And they just inserted the camera and done their job and would, which I didn't know anything about, I didn't know a thing about what was'

You weren't awake enough to see the screen?

Oh I was, I was, I wake wide awake and I could see the screen and I had this nurse talking to me and they were doing their job which I didn't know nothing about.

You couldn't feel anything?

I couldn't feel a thing and they finished the job and everything was fine.
 

What happened was I was asked, I got undressed, and I put two gowns on, one backwards, one frontwards. Then I went in and lay down on this table, and the doctor then came and told me what he was going to do. He put a shunt, I think you call it, in my wrist, and then he injected various liquids saying this is going to make you not necessarily drowsy, just relaxed. He said, 'We don't want you to go to sleep, you don't need to over relax,' he said, 'Because if what I'm going to do becomes a problem in any way I want you to tell me.' He said, 'And that's no good if you're asleep.' So he put this liquid in and he told me exactly what he was going to do. He showed me the instrument he was going to use, very flexible, a lot thinner than I had expected, a lot thinner, barely as thick as my finger, little finger that is, and then he began the treatment, he began to insert it. Now I was aware that something was being inserted, of course I was, but it wasn't, it wasn't unpleasant, it wasn't particularly discomforting, certainly wasn't painful. And he did stress that if at any time I felt pain or a problem he said, 'You must let me know,' he said, 'because, what you can feel is important for me to know about'. 

And he said, 'There are problems', and I should have said that even before I went in, I got undressed, the doctor had said to me, 'Look' he said, 'Ultimately, there is one in half a million chance we will say of  bowel perforation, which is a serious condition' he said. He said, 'It rarely happens, of course' he said, ' But if you're awake and something doesn't feel quite right, you can tell me, and I can take steps to correct it, put it right.' Again all along the line there was so much reassurance.

Footnote' The colonoscope can cause a hole (a perforation) in the wall of the bowel. The chances of this happening are about one in 1, 500.
 

For me the colonoscopy was simple, simple in itself because the first thing they do is prepare you by making sure your bowels are totally clear although you have already gone through a preparation period when your bowels are empty. You don't actually have any [faeces in the bowel] but they still give you an enema. And then they give you a local anaesthetic which he said, I might be aware of what's going on. Although I'd had this anaesthetic in fact I went to sleep. One of the best sleeps I've had for ages, I simply just went. And I was a long time before I actually came back. I think my wife had called in a couple of times. They said, 'Oh he'll be another fifteen minutes, he'll be another fifteen minutes.' And so I continued to sleep quite merrily on afterwards. So the, the colonoscopy itself I have no recollection of at all.

What sort of anaesthetic did you have, just a bit? 

Just a local anaesthetic.

Local anaesthetic.

I think it's, delivered in the hand. 

As a sedative or something?

I don't know but it certainly puts me to sleep.

I've since had another colonoscopy of which I didn't have anaesthetic and I have to say that it's not a comfortable thing if you're awake. It's not a comfortable thing but it's not painful. It's just that, it's not normal to me anyway. So I've experienced both with anaesthetic and without and I would prefer it with really, because you know, you're just not aware of what's going on.
 

And then did you say you had a choice of whether you had a sedative or not when you got to the hospital?

Yes I was given the choice of having a sedative. I chose not to have it, I'm always interested in things I suppose, I know an awful lot of people who haven't had the sedative but, but you needn't worry if you, if you want to be sedated they, they offer you that chance, that opportunity sorry.

And you said that you could see what was happening on the television screen, was it a special screen so you could see exactly what the doctors were seeing?

Yes in fact they encourage you to have, they tend to encourage you to have a look at it but to be perfectly frank with you, we're not experienced in that sort of field so to be honest I really didn't know what I was looking at. Trying to pick out, for example a polyp, I wouldn't have know if, if he found one or not. But it was just, it was just interesting to watch it. It also takes your mind off what they're doing.

And what does it actually feel like to have a colonoscopy?

No problem whatsoever, you don't feel anything.

It didn't feel uncomfortable?

It didn't feel uncomfortable at all, and that's without sedation.
 

Yes, yes well when I walked into the room where they did the, I wouldn't have called it a theatre so much, and I was introduced to this nurse and she said, 'I'm going to hold your hand through the whole procedure and if you have any discomfort squeeze my hand.' So I said, 'Okay.' And of course you couldn't see what was going on but I didn't feel any discomfort at all, no pain at all. But the nurse did give me a sedative before I went in and I was very relaxed. I watched it on the screen, which was quite interesting; you don't get the opportunity to see your insides very often [laughs].

Can you describe that?

Yes I just saw a probe and I asked certain questions like, 'What is that?' and you know 'what's happening there?' And they described to me exactly what was happening and you know really, and then I must have gone quiet because I know, the doctor said to the nurse, 'Has she gone to sleep?' [laughs]. She said, 'No she's watching the television screen, or the monitor,' so.

Did you see them removing the polyp?

Yes I did.
 

During the colonoscopy, do you remember whether you saw what was going on the television screen?

Yes, the doctor said to me that if I watched, I think it was the bottom right I would see the instrument he used, appear. And I did and it, actually you could watch it go through your body. I was pretty much relaxed so I think I remember the beginning and more or less the end but I could see this, the instrument going through and I can remember at one point I asked what that was, I could see a dark thing and he just said, 'Don't worry about that, that's a piece of poo.' So [laugh] the laxative hadn't 100% worked but it was interested watching it, but as I say I can't remember everything about it, I was that relaxed.

So could you see the little camera whatever it is.

Yes that's the word I was thinking of, it's like a small instrument going through looking and you could see your insides basically.

And while that was happening did that hurt at all?

No I never felt, honestly I never felt a thing.

Oh that's good. And then?

I didn't even feel, to be honest when it went, when the put it in my back passage I never, I think, I can vaguely remember just feeling something but it didn't hurt.
 

It was scheduled, I understand, to be a 45 minute procedure but because they found problems, I had six polyps, three of which apparently were quite serious, one, from the results that I was given yesterday, is potentially cancerous and malignant, it took a lot longer. I actually underwent an hour and a half long procedure and had it not been for the rather wonderful staff nurse who was with me at my head during the procedure; I was told I was going a bit green but I did see it through because quite obviously it has to be successful, otherwise there's no good in actually having it done, and the removal of the offensive parts, the polyps, was the obvious aim of the exercise.

So did they remove all the polyps?

They removed all six but the final one, right at the top of the colon apparently, was the one which was giving the greatest concern and rather than being the kind that was on a, like a stalk, it was rather a flat structure, on the wall of the colon. They believe they've removed all that, and they believe that they have an almost 100% success rate, with those removals, but I have to go back in February next, that's three months' time for a further check just to ensure that everything is okay and thereon I will be on an annual check programme, if everything is okay.

During the colonoscopy could you see what was happening on the screen?

I did yes, it was rather intriguing, to watch one's inside in colour. I had no idea that it looked quite like that, and I was fascinated by the fact, as a photographer that things were so bright and so clear and so high definition on the screen and how clean the inside of the, the colon was. I didn't expect it to be quite so bright and so pink with the problems of the polyps so obvious.

And could you see them removing the polyp?

Yes I could, yes, but I couldn't feel anything internally. It did surprise me somewhat when I learnt that invasive techniques like this, when things were being removed from the wall of the colon, had no sense of feeling, because the internal area of the stomach there does not have the same sense of touch and pain as the external parts of the body. I didn't actually feel them being removed at all, I just watched them and it was quite fascinating.