OK, here goes. If you are 50 or if you doctor tells you to do it earlier, GET A COLONOSCOPY PRONTO!! When I was 50, I did not have health insurance. The small company I worked for had recently dropped it because of increase costs. I could not afford the premiums myself. I definitely wasn't going to pay for a colonoscopy out of my pocket, so I went without. At 56, I could get Obamacare insurance. I started having "bathroom problems". I had been regular all my life and all of a sudden, I wasn't. My doctor said I needed to get a colonoscopy.
I got it done, and the doctor said I had a problem. Ends up I had Stage 4 rectal cancer that also was in some of my lymph nodes!! In case you don't know, that is NOT good! I went through around 10 series of weeks of pill form chemotherapy (2 weeks on, 1 week recovery). I was told to be careful not to let others come into contact with it or your body fluids while taking it and for a time after taking it, and I needed to wear gloves when touching the pills. Basically it is like poisoning yourself. It caused extreme fatigue, nausea, pain, and some hair loss. At the same time, I was getting daily radiation treatments, Monday thru Friday. The side effects of the radiation on me were not good!
After recovering sufficiently from the oral chemotherapy and radiation treatments, I had my surgery in January of 2017. My surgery lasted around 9 hours. I had about a 10 inch incision that was closed by many, many staples. They had to remove a section of my rectum big enough to include the cancerous lymph nodes. I was in the hospital 10 days. After a few months to recover from the surgery, I had around ten IV chemotherapy treatments. Each treatment took 3-4 hours at the cancer center, then I would go home with a portable chemo pump. This was hooked to a port in my chest. It would dispense the correct amount, of a different chemo drug, gradually into me over 3 days. I would then go back to the cancer center to have the pump removed. I would have a treatment every other week, if possible. I say, if possible, because before you got an infusion, you had to get your blood tested. Many things had to be right before you could get the treatment. If they were not right, you would have to wait a week to allow things to get right. This stuff almost kills you. Side effects include severe nausea, extreme fatigue, mouth and tongue sores that would bleed whenever you tried to eat (which you never felt like doing). loss of taste, if you drank a cold liquid, it would burn horribly, so everything had to be room temperature. I had to wear gloves to handle anything cold from the refrigerator and especially the freezer. These would gradually go away over the 2 week period, then you would do it again. DOES ANYBODY STILL THINK A COLONOSCOPY IS NOT WORTH GETTING?
Normally, when the IV chemotherapy treatments are over, you are done. I apparently am not normal. The radiation treatments caused me many lasting side effects. I got blood clots in my right leg that caused it to swell about 3 times normal size. If they break loose, it can be fatal. I went in the hospital. The treatments caused my sacrum bone to become brittle. It is a porous bone at the base of your spine. It has many nerves running through it. Mine cracked in a few places destroying the nerves, and causing extremely severe pain! For a period of 7 days, I could not sit or lay down because the pain was so bad. I slept about 10 hours in 7 days. I would just walk continuously around in my house! Because of sleep deprivation, I had hallucinations and would fall down! I went in the hospital. I got a Sacroplasty. This is like putting cement in the cracks of my sacrum.
I got a terrible case of Cellulitis in both of my legs. It is a common, potentially serious bacterial skin infection. The affected area appears swollen and red and is typically painful and warm to the touch. It occurs when a crack or break in your skin allows bacteria to enter. Left untreated, the infection can spread to your lymph nodes and bloodstream and rapidly become life-threatening. I went in the hospital. The picture is of what my Cellulitis looked like. The nerve damage from the radiation treatments actually caused me to get hammertoes. This is when your toes curl under, and you basically have to walk on your toes, which is painful. Surgery requires breaking your smaller toes, putting pins in them that go through the bones and into your foot. The end of the pins stick out of your toes, and have to stay that way for 7 weeks. Then, the pins are removed. The big toes get a permanent large screw in them. You only do one foot at a time.
Long story somewhat shorter, I spent five and a half months of 2017 in the hospital or rehab centers. Bills ran over $600,000! Thank goodness for insurance. Because of destroyed nerves, I have some challenges everyday. The sacrum pain, while not nearly what it was, is always there. All of this might sound bad, but it is better than the alternative.......Taking a dirt nap!! My cancer has been in remission since 2017! Thank you, Lord!
I only have one question: DOES ANYBODY STILL THINK A COLONOSCOPY IS NOT WORTH GETTING?