Urgent colonoscopy and I’m scared

[ATadScared]

I’ve been referred for an urgent colonoscopy and whilst no one has said the words bowel cancer to me I knew it was a possibility. Tonight I’ve just been on my account on the NHS app and seen the words there in black and white “suspected bowel cancer” and I feel alone and scared.

Three friends know about the colonoscopy, all of them going through their own struggles at the moment so I don’t feel like I can talk to them about it as I don’t want to add to their worries. One of them has been quite dismissive anyway so I feel like I definitely can’t bring it up with her, though I wonder whether it’s her way of not letting me worry.

I’m perfectly fine most of the time but it’s just hit me now at nighttime and I’m suddenly scared and feeling very alone. This is the latest in a run of health issues and I just want to hide from it all now but I know I can’t.

I don’t know what I’m doing on here really except maybe to just say hello.

I had a colonoscopy last week - or rather they tried to, apparently my bowel was twisted and loopy (a torturous colon the consultant said, which my DH thought was hilarious… ) and they couldn’t carry on.

so I’ve been booked in for a CT colonngraphy next week and if there is a problem, such as polyp or needing to have a biopsy, I’ll need to have a colonoscopy under general anaesthetic with CT scan only being diagnostic rather than therapeutic.

the thought of going through the laxative again just fills me with dread - although apparently it’s not as horrific as moviprep. We will see!

but I’m absolutely scared to death - terrified of what they might find…

@Mindymomo - sorry to hear you’ve got to have more tests and a GA to boot.
i had a small bowel MRI today - when I got there they gave me a litre of moviprep - I was 🤦‍♀️. I knew I was going to have something but on phone they said 500ml of a liquid that can have laxative effects (no shit!) to dilate your intestine.
in the end it wasn’t so bad - I didn’t have diarrhoea (was so worried I’d poo myself in the shiny scanner), but I went normally just before going in and on coming out. Prob because there was no ‘prep’ involved.
i get results next week.

@Mindymomo I don't think they can scrape anything away during that procedure, because it's not an invasive one. Also the surgeon said any surgery to remove it would probably involve a bowel resection, so it's not just scraping it away. I think the body has wrapped this bit of fish bone / foreign body in calcification to protect itself, but it's still attached to the outside of the colon wall?

@MabelMoo23 that sounds painful !

@MabelMoo23, I had a flexible sigmoidoscopy a while back (they look at the first parts of the colon, but the procedure is very similar). It was absolute agony. The doctor was continually moving the scope around, to the point where I begged for some pain relief and was eventually given gas and air. It didn't help. He only got a third of the way I to my colon.
Because they couldn't see everything they wanted to (whole other thread), I had to have another.
The contrast between the two was night and day. I had sedation for the second, and while I still had to ask for pain relief, it was miles better. (And the doctor was able to view two thirds of the colon.)
I felt so upset and angry after the first one I wrote to PALS. I suspect the first doctor was far less experienced. I also know now that given my medical history I should have had sedation for the first one too, but I didn't know I could ask for it as my appointment letter said they didn't offer sedation.
The whole thing is crap, literally. I hope you get some answers and your treatment is more gentle from now onwards.

I've now had a date for Colonoscopy - 16th Oct.
Not looking forward to it. I had an endoscopy last year &, as a survivor of CSA, I found it really hard psychologically as well as painful.