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We're marching to the colon.....
Jan. 20th, 2005 06:36 pmLovely surprise Wednesday afternoon. Had this sudden urge to go to the bathroom, and so I went to the men's room. After the exit of a fair amount of gas, I stood up and turned around to look down on a bowlful of red water. Not good. Very much not good.
It doesn't take a lot of blood to make toilet water bright red. A fast check of my pulse revealed that it was normal, nor was I lightheaded. Given the the bright red color married with the lack of lightheadedness, this appeared to be a very low bleed (as a low with the lower intestine). So the good news is I'm not dying immediately. More than enough time to finish seeing patients for the day, and then figure out what the next move was.
I put in a call this morning to a dear friend and colleague to tell him he needs to get a look of my backside. I've a wonderful things good friends do for us! (My friend Don is very fond of saying, "friends help you move; really good friends help you move the body!") So tomorrow morning bright and early my friend Jan will show up at that house to pick me up and take me down to Warrick Hospital. I report at seven and by eight I will be sedated, and having my innards plumbed. I've been told they will be giving me Fentanyl and Versed, so I'll be conscious but I won't really be there. 10 mg of Versed and one could face a supernova. To be honest, control freak that I am, I'm not really looking forward to be sedated.
And of course, my mind has gone to the worst possible scenario. While there are a large number of possibilities for this bleeding (a polyp, an internal hemorrhoid, a bleeding diverticulum), my inner voice has already told me that this is colon cancer. Like I said, worst-case scenario. Statistically by the way this is not the most likely. If you have to place a bet, put it on one of the first three disease states I mentioned.
Blood in places where it doesn't belong is not a pleasant experience. Someone who gets a really nasty upper GI bleed, will have that blood just fly through their intestinal tract. It's an irritant, and the colon and small intestine pick up the pace and move it right through (we're marching to the rectum!) Small amounts of been collecting for me all day and so every 20 minutes to half an hour I'm in the bathroom again (and not passing much of anything at all!). It's getting rather old. That is however about to change since I just took half a bottle of Fleet's phospho soda which should do a very good job of cleaning me out between now and say now and 10 o'clock tonight.
At the current moment I'm fairly calm, and don't feel all that much discomfort. This morning I was ready to be scraped off the ceiling however. We shall see what the morning brings. James made the drive up this evening and will be at the hospital with Jan in the morning, and LJ has plans to come pick me up when all is said and done. The major surprise here. He does not deal well with hospitals or even so much as the concept of illness (remember, this is the man who insisted that I was in the room when he had his cardiac catheterization and then asked if I could be in the O. R. when he had his chest opened!). Then again I'm the medical one. As I said, we'll see what tomorrow brings.
It doesn't take a lot of blood to make toilet water bright red. A fast check of my pulse revealed that it was normal, nor was I lightheaded. Given the the bright red color married with the lack of lightheadedness, this appeared to be a very low bleed (as a low with the lower intestine). So the good news is I'm not dying immediately. More than enough time to finish seeing patients for the day, and then figure out what the next move was.
I put in a call this morning to a dear friend and colleague to tell him he needs to get a look of my backside. I've a wonderful things good friends do for us! (My friend Don is very fond of saying, "friends help you move; really good friends help you move the body!") So tomorrow morning bright and early my friend Jan will show up at that house to pick me up and take me down to Warrick Hospital. I report at seven and by eight I will be sedated, and having my innards plumbed. I've been told they will be giving me Fentanyl and Versed, so I'll be conscious but I won't really be there. 10 mg of Versed and one could face a supernova. To be honest, control freak that I am, I'm not really looking forward to be sedated.
And of course, my mind has gone to the worst possible scenario. While there are a large number of possibilities for this bleeding (a polyp, an internal hemorrhoid, a bleeding diverticulum), my inner voice has already told me that this is colon cancer. Like I said, worst-case scenario. Statistically by the way this is not the most likely. If you have to place a bet, put it on one of the first three disease states I mentioned.
Blood in places where it doesn't belong is not a pleasant experience. Someone who gets a really nasty upper GI bleed, will have that blood just fly through their intestinal tract. It's an irritant, and the colon and small intestine pick up the pace and move it right through (we're marching to the rectum!) Small amounts of been collecting for me all day and so every 20 minutes to half an hour I'm in the bathroom again (and not passing much of anything at all!). It's getting rather old. That is however about to change since I just took half a bottle of Fleet's phospho soda which should do a very good job of cleaning me out between now and say now and 10 o'clock tonight.
At the current moment I'm fairly calm, and don't feel all that much discomfort. This morning I was ready to be scraped off the ceiling however. We shall see what the morning brings. James made the drive up this evening and will be at the hospital with Jan in the morning, and LJ has plans to come pick me up when all is said and done. The major surprise here. He does not deal well with hospitals or even so much as the concept of illness (remember, this is the man who insisted that I was in the room when he had his cardiac catheterization and then asked if I could be in the O. R. when he had his chest opened!). Then again I'm the medical one. As I said, we'll see what tomorrow brings.
