"Ping". You would have thought that a death knell would have a little more umph, but no, not several tons of bronze being man-hauled by a bunch of Dominicans, but no, "Ping" not even "Ping!". I retrieved the phone, "Bowel Cancer Screening Program. Following the results of your test a pre-investigation interview has been set up with you on Monday at..." There was a slight lurch as the others round the breakfast table lost focus for a bit. I was finishing a week in the Peaks with the Coniston crowd, having indulged in a novelty game of Pooh Sticks with the BCRS about 10 days ago, consequently none of the bumf (apt huh?), had caught up with me. So no handy leaflets and emollient statistics, just, "You've got cancer, you're going to die!"
The leaflets did something to soothe my troubled breast, I had the pre-investigation interview, genial persuasion to allow a colonoscopy, and was booked in for the following Monday (less than 2 weeks, who'd a thunk it). The following week was not the best, I was still determined to die - though reluctantly. I stopped watching Talking Pictures TV afrighted by the constant adverts for Funeral Plans. I bought the recommended zinc oxide to protect my tender parts from the inevitable results of drinking two and a half litres of Polyethylene glycol the night before. I consulted those who had undergone the process, "Terrible, the worst thing ever!" and "pah!". I got up at 5.00 to drink my final dose, hoping for a particularly difficult "Wordle" for the next 45 minutes, and had a final chat with myself on the merits of cycling to the hospital, or, to be more accurate, the merits, indeed the possibility, of cycling back! A small discursion on comparative anatomy persuaded me to continue on the bike, it would after all, be a spectacular miss on their part.
Hemel Hempstead has 11 rooms dedicated to colonoscopy for the BCSP, which I thought staggering, but then rationalised "money saved now vs money spent later". After donning my paper pants complete with rear entrance, I tried to chat to the gent in the next bed but he was too terrified, that put things in perspective! I was wheeled in to meet Scott Vigor - colonoscope-wielder extraordinaire and his team of two nurses, Gen and Aisha.
"Do you want to watch?" Well, why not, I was always a fan of "Fantastic Voyage", though I doubted we'd find Raquel Welch up there, and hopefully not Donald Pleasance.
Let's begin:
Entonox 50% to get round the first bend, after that plain-sailing, that's blokes for you.
A series of black discs on the roof led me to despondency, I was dead, or colostomized.
"Got a few diverticulii there."
Aha, shadows, not dead yet, just moving past my gut sell-by date.
"There's a polyp, we'll get that and any others on the way back. There's another one, bit of a tiddler, we'll have that."
The polyp is lassooed, cut and sucked away down the tube. Cripes! But wait, there's more. The first polyp is big, 12mm,
"That's not going to fit down the tube, we'll use the net..."
?
"and diathermy"
!!
A patch is slapped on my arse - the earth. A purple dye is injected into the base of the polyp to provide insulation and a marker, and then... and then, like a Mali fisherman casting from his dugout a net appears enveloping the polyp.
"Cutting now - that's it."
Gen disappears from my periphery, legging it across the room, at first puzzled, I realise that she is retrieving the net from however far up the bowel it is! Within seconds she is waving a specimen jar in front of me with glee,
"Here it is!"
I am wheeled back to the pre-op, where I am fed cake and squash and have my superfluous venflon removed. When I don't die, leak or vomit copious amounts of blood, I am released, I got to Iceland and buy Liquorice Flyers to celebrate.
The pathology comes in the next day - benign. I will have another colonoscopy in 3 years and, if negative will be (appropriately) discharged.
It was the best daytime tv I've seen for ages.
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