I am horrified to realise that I have come all this way without ever sharing with you all (The Masses, I'll have to call ye) about the delight that is a colonoscopy.
How could I have neglected this important part of your education about the life of a bowel cancer patient?
Perhaps because the thought of it makes me gag. Because as soon as the last one is over I shut my eyes and cover my ears and mutter "la la la la" and hope it all goes away and never comes back (a bit like some No voters...)
But as long as I am alive (cue multiple reassuring sounds and uncomfortable shuffling of feet), I will need to have regular colonoscopies.
No one knows quite how regular, because guidelines on how to appropriately manage Stage 4 cancer patients generally extend as far as "Try a few things, then book the hospice".
There are more and more of us now though. "Survivors". Oh how we detest the word.
"Living with and beyond cancer" is the trendier term. There's gazillions of us roaming around. Semi-riddled. Given the Half-Clear. Terminal in the Ryanair sense (a few miles away from the real thing). And we need to be monitored to see when/if we return to what's statistically expected of us, like good little no-hopers.
That means scans every now and then, or then and now, or whenever we get an ache or a lump, or when our private vs public status allows.
It means scoping up and down and sideways (for ear cancer, like). It means PETs that aren't cuddly. It means ear-thundering MRIs, cold-gelled ultrasounds, tumour marker blood tests (they're hilarious; never before have I seen so many disclaimers at the bottom of a lab report. Useful only if they're so high that the cancer itself has walked to the hospital and slapped itself onto the lab counter).
I don't like to get into the My-Cancer-Is-Worse-Than-Yours game (Rubbish. I totally do. Cos I would WIN).
But no other cancer requires the regular ingestion of what can only be described as the Serum of Saruman mixed with Dib-Dab powder. There has got to be a better way. Two litres of the stuff has to be got through, allegedly over 3-4 hours but it takes me a whole day. I hold me nose, I drink through a straw, I add ice. I still have tears running down my face, and full-scale gagging noises coming from deep inside me.
And then there's the "outcome". The "output". The "desired effect".
I've had proper dangerous tropical diarrhoea, requiring me to knock on the door of a Slightly-More-Than-A-Hut type dwelling at the side of the road in rural Kenya, begging to use their hole in the ground (it was in a separate hut - I knew the place was fancy). That was pretty bad.
But hour after hour after hour of hearing what sounds like a full carwash bucket being sluiced down the toilet, knowing that it has come from the bit of you that doesn't usually make such waterfall-y noises, is quite an experience.
We always learned that cholera causes severe, life-threatening watery diarrhoea. I don't think I fully understood what this meant until I saw litres of wee-coloured stuff coming from my butt.
I found this list of helpful advice:
I mean, who doesn't love a bit of gelatin? Melted horse hooves - what's not to like?
Number 9 could result in Actual Bodily Harm.
Number 10 is a bit contingent, isn't it? You only get the reward if your colonoscopy is "successful". Define, please? Successful if it finds a huge tumour and you haven't wasted everyone's time?
My top tips are as follows
- Scald off your tastebuds a few days in advance with some boiling tea.
- Ban all eating, by anyone in your house, for the full fasting period.
- Don't do the weekly grocery shop when the next food to pass your lips is 24 hours away.
- This one isn't mine, but it seems wise: don't attempt to mow the lawn after taking the prep (thanks RK!)
- Grin and bear it. Your reward will be the deliciousness of drug-induced sleep, followed by the ambrosia of hospital tea and toast.
Bottoms up!
