Interview 22

Age at interview: 73

Age at diagnosis: 73

Brief Outline:

Diagnosed with colorectal cancer 2001, under went surgery and a temporary colostomy.

He was pleased when a stoma nurse suggested a better type of appliance for him.

The bag that the hospital stoma nurse, where I'd the operation, she gave me, there was a two piece arrangement. I had difficulty to begin with, practicing, she left me them to practice with of course. I had difficulty in getting the two together to seal and on the last afternoon before coming home she came and I, I did it and she said "Fine you've done it, no problem," so that was it.

I did cope with it but I remember for about three days, four days, I always had a problem. I kept it on for about two days and then when I was changing I had problems uh a little bit and that worried me, thinking you know if I can't get it on what's gonna happen, but each time I did manage it eventually.

And then the local stoma nurse came and she said "What sort of bag have you got? Oh," she said "I prefer the one, one piece bag." And so she sent me a supply and so after about, four or five days I thought well I'll try one, so I tried one and I stuck with it, far better, far superior.

Having an MRI scan worried him because he is claustrophobic.

The one that really worried me when I was down and the professor said he wanted the MRI scan. Now I did know a bit about an MRI scan, that you almost went into a tunnel sort of thing and uh, that absolutely frightened me, that was the worst thing I felt throughout the whole of this six or nine months.

For two days before going down my, my wife, she said I wasn't fit to live with. I was really worried because I felt I wasn't going to be able to uh undertake this.

And I phoned them and from home two days before and explained my problem. I presumed they must have had this before and she said "Well, don't worry," she said "We'll help you, we'll sort it out." She said "We'll put you feet-first in so that you don't have to go right through the tunnel um, and I'll send you a leaflet about it." and what have you. This was the nurse in the MRI section. So this, this information came and I read it, I still felt very uncomfortable.

This nurse came to lead me to get undressed and to put the uh smock on. Now she said "Don't you worry," she said "I'll hold your hand all the way." And she said, "In fact we'll probably bring you a gin and tonic you know, to keep you, to keep you going." So of course that was her humour.

So I got into this machine, I was lying on it, very apprehensive and I went through and I could see they sort of check, you know, "are you going to be alright?" And fortunately my head uh did come out of this area and I was in the open of the room, but this machine was just above me like that, but I could see the ceiling and I could see around me so I said "I think I'm going to be alright."

They pulled me out of the machine and I was glowing, I felt wonderful, it was like going on holiday almost, it was over and I'd coped and as it happened it was a good thing I had coped because the professor got a lot of information that he needed from the results of that scan.