100DaysToOffload

“Day 10: In which I tell you about how I didn't get bowel cancer”

They always say you either come from a heart problem family or a cancer family. I come from a cancer family – I won't name family members, but there has been lung cancer, bowel cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer in my family. I wouldn't say I have a fatalistic view of my destiny, but family history suggests a correlation with a higher than average risk of cancer.

I've never smoked, so am skewing the odds massively in my favour for lung cancer. I have a PSA level taken each year as, even though I'm only in my mid fifties, that which might be compared to a firehose is rather gentler in nature – so I don't expect prostate cancer to take me by surprise.

And then, a couple of months after my fifty-fifth birthday, I got an invitation for “Bowel Scope Screening” (I assume “flexible sigmoidoscopy” is too complicated a term for us muggles). I take a consistent approach with NHS appointments: accept the first date you're offered and re-arrange anything else around it. So about a fortnight later I went into Rugby hospital suitably prepared using the enema pack they'd sent me (top tip: keep repeating the procedure until all the enema solution is used, this way you'll ensure visibility further up the colon).

Instead of an all clear, I got to learn some new words: adenoma, pendunculated and then later tubulo-villous. They found a large polyp (adenoma) that was on a stalk (pendunculated) and I was referred to the University Hospital in Coventry for a full colonoscopy and its removal. Colonoscopy preparation is fun: starts with some stuff called Picolax which just opens the sluices, followed by two waves of Moviprep – fascinating stuff, it goes in clear and comes out yellow.

The excellent consultant firstly piloted the colonoscope up to the ileum and showed me the villi at the end of my small intestine (I remember those from O-level Biology), then came back to the mushroom shaped polyp which, on closer examination, had another bit growing sideways off the stalk. It's removal was fascinating to watch (there was a screen I could look at), the removal was done by lassoing it with a resistive wire and passing current down there and back through the return electrode that was stuck to my bum cheek. As my bowel had been inflated using CO2 there was a puff of smoke, but no risk of the rest of my colon “going on fire”. They wanted to retrieve the pieces for biopsy, so a little net was deployed down the colonoscope – on the screen it looked like a Bugs Bunny themed First Person Shooter as he went round my bowel hunting not “Wabbits” but “Polyps”. And then finally I got my first and only tattoo – the site marked with tattoo ink for subsequent re-inspection (which has happened twice so far).

So why am I sharing this with you? Because the polyp they removed had a high chance of becoming cancerous (it was assessed as tubulo-villous, which is a pre-cancerous stage). And because, just now, all this sort of work has stopped. The Bowel Scope Screening programme isn't universal, I was lucky to be in the subset of 55 year olds who got the screening. Endoscopy departments are currently not working, the staff diverted to Covid-19. My life changing (for the better) treatment would not have happened, and it is likely that in the next 10 years or so I'd have developed bowel cancer.

The “excess deaths” from Covid-19 will come over a range of time: some will be soon, from people not seeking prompt treatment for symptoms. Other will be over much longer times, where screening has been cancelled.

This post is day 10 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Visit https://100daystooffload.com to get more info, or to get involved.