Routine Scopes

For the next 11 years, I went through routine colonoscopies on a yearly basis. For a majority of the time, they were fairly uneventful. I had two situations where I actually bled out after polyp removal where the cut did not heal immediately. These were followed by quit jaunts and stays in the hospitals to ensure I didn't empty completely and typically to rehydrate. I never needed a transfusion (thankfully), but the doctors seemed more concerned than I realized. (Here I thought the lightheaded feeling was due to the chain smoking I was doing.)

I had two situations were pathology reports came back "indeterminate". This was a comfortable way of them saying "we aren't sure if it's cancer or not". I can honestly say those were two of the longest spans in between scopes, even though they were only 3 months. Thankfully, on followup scopes, the reports came back negative and we were all clear. I'm fairly certain we went on to party on those evenings.

As part of the routine checks, my previous GI noticed elevated liver levels. Ironically, so did my attempt at personal life insurance. After a set of upper GI scopes and a liver biopsy (now THAT was interesting), my GI confirmed primary schlerosing cholangitis (or PSC). This is a liver disease which sees the shrinking or narrowing of the bile ducts out (or inside) the liver. This is something that may need to be addressed in the future, but, due to other GI issues, this gets sidelined until something really breaks. Basically, if you have a fever and your pee is dark and doesn't stink, that's bad: Time to see the ER. So we wait.

After moving around, I returned near to our prior place of residence and started to see my previous GI. [I was thankful for this, as I felt he was one of the best I had ever seen, unfortunately, he was always the one giving me bad news. Bad for him, in that neither of our lucks changed.] I scheduled my yearly scope with him and reminded him to knock my ass out this time, as I've remembered way too many scopes and they are far from pleasant. Not a real amount of polyps (compared to previous scopes) and only acute signs of UC and scarring from the "good 'ole days". This was typical, so away we go and await another year... Or so we thought.