Posted 4/20/2010 12:24 AM (GMT 0)
And I can safely say it was the most gruelling colonoscopy I've had to date. Firstly, the prepping took it out of me more than normal - both literally and metaphorically. And secondly, the procedure itself - oh dear lord. I was sedated and hence only remember a few minutes of it, but those few minutes were among some of the most excruciatingly painful in my life. I was crying out in pain and ended up almost begging for a painkiller. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but the nurses were reassuring me and somebody did give me something, I think - not enough, but enough to make it through to the end. Never did I feel such relief at something being over.
Before I scare anybody off from getting a colonoscopy I've had three other colonoscopies and none of them were like this one. For the first two I didn't feel a thing; the third one was more uncomfortable but nothing even remotely approaching today. However, it really isn't the norm to feel bad pain during a colonoscopy.
Anyway, it seems like I don't have any strictures in my colon apparently, but it would appear to be well and truly fried. Crohn's colitis throughout, with a "normal" anus and rectum. (Nice to know they're normal <_<)
The comments in my report says: "Extensive colitic changes with fissuring and ulcerations with membernous [sic?] exudate. Changes are very marked in the right side, less marked in the left side with sparing of rectum."
A nurse explained to me that exudate referred to liquid exuding from the membranes, that's all I can tell you about that bit. And fissuring: I don't get that bit either. That is, I know what fissures are, but I thought they only happened in the anus...
The nurses who dealt with me were lovely and, almost for the first time in 11 years of this disease, I felt like they seemed actually concerned about my welfare. Even the surgeon who did my colonoscopy seemed nice. He said I was very thin - too thin. He said something about surgery, but I must have still been amnesiac from the sedative, as I don't remember it. Time will tell, I guess. It'll take two weeks for the biopsies from the colonoscopies to be tested, but the nurses said they would try to fast-track it. Once the biopsies have been tested, I'll see one of the GIs/surgeons.
Oh yes. The colonsocopy only went as far as the caecum, so I don't know what the terminal ileum is like. Found that a bit odd, but nobody said anything about being physically unable to reach the TI; maybe by that point I was crying out too much with pain and they decided it wasn't worth going on... :-/
So... I'm glad something is being done at long last. I don't consider my Crohn's to be as bad as most on here, but it has been grating heavily on me for about a year now, all the same. Remicade, surgery... whatever, I'll probably agree straight away at this point.