Monday 6 March 2006

The day of the dreaded Bronchosopy.
Again restrictions on food and drink, I was determined to get as much fluids inside me as I could, I drank coffee right up to the cut off point.

My Partner and daughter of 11 months accompanied me to the Day Procedure department and once I had checked in and had acquired a contact number for them to call back on later for my collection I said goodbye to them.

The waiting room was full and I thought I would be here ages, good job I had my book again.
I soon realised that most of those in the waiting room were not awaiting a procedure at all, but had merely come along to support their, mother, father, husband, wife etc. The man sat next to me had both his wife and daughter with him.
It was not long before I was called.
I followed the nurse out of the waiting room and shown to a chair in a corner of the examination room as all the beds were full.

Once I’d had my blood pressure taken I remained in the chair, hidden by the side curtain of the one of the cubicles, for the next hour.

I watched an older man, also in for a Bronchosopy - his third, hobble to and fro from the toilet. I wish he had kept his unasked for comments on the procedure to himself – when he asked if I had had my enema yet? I felt like telling him to ‘feck-off’ and leave me to get on with this in my own way, there is nothing worse than a know-it-all who believes that all that has happened to him with be exactly the same for others.

As I suspected there was no enema, I had followed the eating instructions to the letter. However, once I was moved to one of the now vacant examination cubicles there was a problem with fitting the Vent-Flow needle in my vain.
This needle has to be put into the vain on the back of your hand for the administration of the sedative prior to the procedure.

Since my veins were practically burnt out from the Chemo some12 years ago they now appear to go into spasms whenever a needle comes in contact with them. A doctor had to be called for because the nurse was unwilling to try a vein further up the arm having unsuccessfully tried the back of both hands. She was not comfortable or familiar with sticking a needle anywhere other than a hand.

The Doctor, obviously inexperienced and also unsure of himself when it came to hitting the vein in the arm went off to get himself a decent handful of paper towels because he said he was expecting a lot of blood, my blood. Whilst he was gone I took advantage of the fact that he had left my notes behind and quickly looked through them.

Apparently we were definitely looking at form of Cancer sitting in my lungs. The needle in the arm and the impending camera down the throat paled into insignificance after that.

Armed with a little more knowledge and a needle in the arm I waited for the Doctor performing today’s procedure to come and talk to me.

The female doctor talked me through what would happen to me during and after the procedure. She mentioned the complications that may arise, 1 in 1,000 people have an adverse affect during procedure.
‘I am not the 1000th person to have it done today?’ I asked jokingly
‘It’s just an average figure’ came the poker-faced reply.

‘Some people have been known to stop breathing during the procedure, but we are trained to deal with that’ – comforting.

I tried to get her to commit to it being a cancerous growth, which I think we all knew it would be. According to my sneaky peek at the notes the questions being asked were: Was it Primary/Secondary? Malignant/Benign?

I was informed the Bronchosopy may not prove conclusive as the offending item may be inaccessible, if this was the case I may need yet another type of procedure which would include a biopsy.

I signed the consent form for the procedure and walked through to the procedure room.

I talked away to a room full of people, the Doctors, the vein one and the Poker one, the nurse with the unsuccessful jab rate, and at least two, if not three others in the room.
A jelly type material was placed up my nose and I was asked to breathe it in sharply and swallow any residue that found its way into my throat. This was to numb the nose cavity and easy the passage of the Endoscope tube as it went up the nose. The taste was not too pleasant but bearable.

I continued to talk as they injected the sedative, talked as they injected more, talked as they injected more, talked……………..

I awoke as I was wheeled into the recovery room and talked, and talked, and talked to the poor woman on the next bed to me. She was relieved when she was allowed to leave the room to be rid of the gibbering idiot next to her.

It was not long before we were reunited again in the holding room for tea and biscuits.

It was whilst I was supping tea that I was told the Doctor would like to come and talk to me before I was allowed home.
The doctor came and went.

I waited for my partner to arrive to pick me up, unbeknown to me she waited in the waiting room for me to be told I could leave, I got fed up of asking if she had arrived and went to look for myself, she had been there for a least an hour, we wasted no more time waiting and left for home.