The time has come for me to blog about my colonoscopy! It was three weeks ago! When I first came back from it, it was fresh in my mind and I wanted to write my experiences down right away... but I got lazy :(
I want to share this in huge gory detail in case someone has to go through it at such a young age like me. Colonoscopy is actually a really common procedure for people over 50 - like it's recommended that you get yourself checked up once you reach that age. But cases for young people like me are next to nonexistant.
You can google what it is but basically what they do during the procedure is - I will go into more details later:
- Go on a low-fibre / liquid-only diet for a few days before... it's not as simple as it sounds, you're not allowed dyed drinks and some juices etc etc.
- Take a shitton of laxatives before the procedure to clear out the bowels the night before.
- Poop every-fucking-thing out. Everything.
- Starve.
- Sedation.
- A fibre optic camera attached to a flexible tube is stuck up your asshole to take pictures / samples of your large intestines.
Sorry for using such bland language. But I thought it would be easier for normal everyday people to understand, rather than the scientific explanations you find online on wikipedia or something. LOL.
-------------------------------------------------------------
SATURDAY:
Okay, so I was admitted to the hospital to stay overnight on Sunday. I was to drink two litres of laxatives on Sunday night, shit everything out, go to bed, and get my operation done on Monday morning.
On Saturday, three days before my colonoscopy, my diet permitted me to eat: meat, fish, soy milk and congee. That was it.
If you know me irl, you'd know that I'm a huge meat eater... I like eating veggies as well but when there is a meat dish and a veg dish in front of me, I'd 100% go for the meat dish. I just like really flavourful (is that even a word? Because Google chrome underlined it for me in red LOL) food!
So I had no problem going on my caveman diet haha. I ate sooo much meat and chugged like 2L of soy milk, LOL.
The only difficulty I had was no fruits - because I LOVE fruits. I eat like six portions of fruits a day. In the office, now that I'm interning, I eat: an orange, an apple, a pear, a dragonfruit, sometimes another apple if they provide it in the office... then I come home and have a BUCKET (I kid you not, a whole bucket) of cherries and sometimes a kiwi to top things off. There is ALWAYS a huge fruit platter at home cos my parents know I am addicted to fruits haha... and this is on top of breakfast / lunch / dinner.
I think I've been eating even more fruits recently because they're my guilt free way to try and add more calories to my diet to gain weight. Plus I must be eating constantly... cos I'm a glutton at heart :( I feel starved if I'm not chewing on something.
But that's besides the point.
On Saturday, I went to Llywelyn's housewarming (previous blogpost - scroll down!). I didn't get to eat anything in the actual housewarming cos they didn't cook any pure meats and instead had tons of veggie sticks... which was obviously high-fibre haha, so good bye to that. I had SEVERAL chicken breasts for breakfast and a whole large steamed fish by myself for lunch though, so it was all good. Oh, and not to forget the 2L of soy milk I chugged before leaving the house.
I managed to resist the homebaked bread too with the help of my friends - thank God cos I would've ruined the procedure otherwise with my binges...
Anyway, sorry for the repetitive pictures - but my dinner:
We went to a Thai restaurant and although we ordered a lot of dishes, I could only touch two - the fish and the satay meat. Which was fine with me LOL... I basically ate the whole fish, I monopolised it... I also monopolised the satay sticks. Felt a bit guilty cos I demolished 3/4 of the sticks and my friends didn't really have any but I didn't get to eat the other dishes ok! And these are the most fattening foods so they should thank me cos they get to lose weight :)
-------------------------------------------------------------
SUNDAY:
On Sunday I could only drink soy milk and eat plain congee. No huge chunks of meat, the only meat I was allowed was pure minced meat soaked in water... so basically no meat too wtf. I was starved the whole day... I seriously hate eating congee because a) you can't chew it, which sucks balls, so it's not satisfying to eat, b) I like flavourful (here comes the nonexistant word again!) foods and congee normally tastes very weak and c) it's not filling!
But I was so hungry that day I ate tons and tons of plain congee. Which tasted shit but at least I was getting something solid into my system. And again, I chugged 2L of soy milk... :(
I had plans to go out that day which I didn't follow through in the end because it was too rushed for me. Sad, because I was really looking forward to the picnic reunion as well. For the food and for the company. But I had to get to the hospital by 6pm, which meant I had to prep at home and shower and pack at 5pm... so too bad.
-------------------------------------------------------------
ACCOMMODATION:
I stayed at the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital in Happy Valley. The medical fees were WHOPPING btw... cos it's a private hospital, but there was no way we could've waited for the government hospitals without lining up for 2+ years... =.= such is the medical service in Hong Kong ha ha.
Anyway I did the regular check ups etc before moving into my room. My nurse-in-charge was a student intern (I think?) who took a look at my medical form and was like, "hey I'm in the same year as you in university!"
My mum and dad nagged me throughout the night that kids my age were already working hands on and I was still a weakling being admitted to the hospital. =.= HEY I'm working too, just in a different setting! And plus the student intern dude was a year older than me cos I'm a year younger than everyone in my grade.
Ok that made me feel a bit better.
I only drank pure water for the rest of the night but my procedure time was delayed to 12 noon the next day... so to avoid me fainting from starvation, my doctor told me I was allowed to have apple or orange juice without pulp up to 12am that night.
(Guess who chugged a litre of apple juice. OMG LOL)
The section of the room I stayed in! I stayed in a room for six people but you get to draw the curtains around your bed obviously. And I basically didn't stay in my "room" at all cos I was in the toilet shitting 95% of the time. Became quite acquainted with the toilet HAHA. And it was really cold in the room (the aircons couldn't be turned down) ... I ended up using two heat blankets and two normal blankets. :(
-------------------------------------------------------------
LAXATIVES:
At 7:30pm they gave me two litres of laxatives to drink. You can see the bottles in the first picture of my room. I thought I'd be fine drinking 2L cos I mean, I chug way more water everyday and I'd been chugging soy milk like a pro the past few days, so what's two litres of laxatives, right?
Wrong.
The nurses told me that the laxatives were "vanilla flavoured" but... like there was a HINT of vanilla but it was also salty as FUCK...
To say they tasted horrible would be a huge fucking understatement. And people KNOW me as the girl who eats basically anything. But here are my experiences with chugging down this HORRIBLE liquid:
I went through the first 3/4 of the first bottle quickly... but near the end of the bottle I started feeling really sick. It wasn't cos I couldn't drink anymore, no, I had starved a whole day and my empty stomach was gladly welcoming anything into it, but it was because it tasted really fucking bad.
Like if you drink half a litre then it's acceptable to most people, I think. Or not even that, but most of the first bottle was okay to me because I'm a huge liquid drinker haha.
But the taste - it was JUST SO BAD... I dunno how many times I have to emphasise it here but you really don't know unless you've tried chugging two litres of it on the go... wtf...
It was so bad I ended up kneeling next to my hospital bed, staring solely at the clock, timing myself and waiting every ten minutes to force myself to take ten huge gulps.
I was literally crying ok cos it was so bad. I wanted to vomit instead of poop LOL. From 7:30 to 9:00 I basically did NOTHING but kneel at the food of my bed (couldn't even sit anymore cos I was so bloated from the liquids), my face in my covers, dreading the end of every ten minutes that passed by (rather quicker than usual, may I add).
Every time I took a sip from the bottle, I shivered and practically burst into tears.
I know people usually drink it throughout the night, but the doctors recommended finishing the two litres as fast as possible. My mum, who has done the procedure twice, told me to chug it down as well. I guess that's why I was so under pressure to just swallow up the laxatives lol.
Plus I didn't want to be moving back and forth between the toilet bowl and my bed once the laxatives kicked in. I knew it would be more unappetising to drink the already-horrible-tasting liquid when the other end of me was shitting diarrhea. And if worst comes to worst I might have had to drink while sitting on the toilet bowl... which I knew would inevitably make me vomit as well LOL.
Anyway I think I finished the 2L by 9:00pm, when my parents came back from dinner around the area to check back on me.
And it was only at 9:00, when my doctor came in to check on me did I realise that "normal" people usually don't even finish their laxatives. =.= My doctor was like "wtf you finished everything ALREADY? Take it easy or your stomach will burst..."
But I guess I am no normal person... because...
Normal people will shit when they eat like three prunes or an orange, but the reason I'm having a colonoscopy done is because I have severe constipation. Meaning: NOTHING works.
I was actually really looking forward to the laxatives at the hospital (before I knew they tasted so bad) because I wanted to fully flush out my system.
Yet even after the 2L of laxatives which would turn any normal person's faeces into pure water... I still could not clear my bowel. Maybe it's cos I fell asleep at around 2AM cos I was so tired and could not make another trip to the bathroom? :(
PS: I got so hungry before midnight that I drank the whole litre of apple juice I had prepared for myself for back up. I was planning to take a small sip but the sweet taste felt so refreshing after the laxatives... I couldn't stop.
-------------------------------------------------------------
MONDAY ENEMA:
So the next morning, the nurses checked on my shit and told me that I hadn't cleared out my large intestines yet, even with all the laxatives. They gave me not one, but two fucking enemas...
Aiya you should google it... it's so disgusting... ok I'll explain what an enema is:
Basically, again, a tube is stuck up your freakin' asshole (when you are 100% conscious may I add) and liquids are sprayed in to stimulate bowel movement.
=.=
But anyway too many people have put too many things up my asshole lately (for purely medical reasons ok LOLLLL ew) that I was kind of used to it. Nevertheless I still felt super gross afterwards.
Plus the enemas caused really bad cramping and stomach pains. And for them to work effectively and be "worth it" (cos you don't want something stuck and sprayed up your anus for nothing, right?) you have to wait it out. At least 20 minutes. So in those 20 minutes my eyes were watering from pain. =.=
The first time, the nurses checked my "poop" afterwards. I quote the word 'poop' because my faeces was basically brown wisps by now... with... wait for me - a lot of black seeds.
Um LOL I'm sorry but even during my suffering that day, I found it super funny. Because -
I'd been eating one large-sized dragonfruit daily. Plus my kiwis. I basically eat a LOT of fruits as I've already mentioned earlier on in this entry, which makes for a lot of seeds...
But the dragonfruit seeds are the most toxic. Tiny and sticky, there were probably gazillions of them in my large intestine. And they WOULDN'T COME OUT.
So I had to have another enema after the nurses tut-tutted at my brown wisps. HAHAHAHAHA.
Actually after my second enema, my poop was still not 100000% clear. But at least it wasn't brown anymore and there were only a few seeds...
So I was ready! For my colonoscopy!
-------------------------------------------------------------
THE COLONOSCOPY:
My colonoscopy was supposed to be at 10:30am but was pushed back to 12:00pm (or was it 12:30?) because my doctor had an emergency operation to tend to... very well. But I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything after 12:00am the night before - not even water - so let me tell you, I was completely out of it in the morning. Like I was soooo dehydrated. Plus I'd barely eaten anything the day before. :( For a girl who's used to snacking all the time and eating shittons, it was really new to me.
But oh well. Had to endure it, right?
(wish I had this much self control normally... I would for sure be thin and fit by now =.=)
At around 11:00am they told me I could go into the waiting room, so I changed into my operation clothes, which consisted of: disposable shower cap like hat, disposable underwear, pants that were too big for me and a huge cotton button up piece of cloth. I felt so naked underneath ok, especially when the clothes were so big for me. =.=
And then the nurse wheeled me down to the operation room in a wheelchair. It all looked really serious, with me in full gear... but I was just having a tiny procedure LMAO.
When they got down to the waiting rooms, the nurse told my parents that they could not go beyond the doors. So I bid goodbye to them...
Then this cleaning lady/middle aged woman worker shouts suddenly, from the sidelines, "no, her parents can go in!!! Children who are under 16 can be accompanied by their parents!"
To which my parents laughed and I laughed and I was like, "I'm 20."
The middle aged woman replied, "oh hahaha I thought you were 15."
-___-
Anyway, the nurse wheeled me into a corridor bustling with doctors and workers and rows and rows of beds, with patients lying on them like corpses. I was a little freaked out cos they were all just LYING there, completely still.
"Why are they so still?" I asked the nurse.
"Oh, they're waiting for their operation," was the reply.
Little did I know, I was just about the become one of them. The nurse parked my wheelchair next to a bed and I climbed into it, had the blankets pulled over me and was told to wait.
I waited.
And waited.
I waited for one hour and a half (or more), frozen in bed, for my operation.
WTF.
Seriously they could've left me in my own room where I could read or sleep more comfortably or talk to my parents. But they isolated me in the waiting room and worse still, I was trapped in a BED. I kept drifting in and out of sleep. And it was sooo uncomfortable. I would say the waiting was one of the worst parts.
When they finally carted me into the operation room I was so grateful. There were students, probably my age, there as well with the doctor. The anaesthesist ruffled my hair and told me that everything was gonna be okay when I asked him if the procedure was gonna hurt, lol.
I was told to slip down my gown / disposable underwear and to lie down sideways. Of course I still had the blanket over me so I didn't die of embarrassment lol (though at that point I really didn't care about my "image", I just wanted to get everything over and done with because I was starving and I'd been waiting so long). Then the anaesthesist started talking to me, asking me questions about my reason for the surgery.
I told him that I had extreme constipation etc etc and I listened as he explained to his students that it's rare for someone so young like me to have to go through this procedure. He told them that I was probably born this way, and perhaps my problems were due to a abnormally long large intestine.
As he gave his small lecture I began crying cos I was so sad and worried about my constipation. :( By then he'd already injected the sedative (is that what it's called? Anyway whatever it is that makes you lose consciousness LOL... I'm not bothered to google, sorry) so I was kinda half out of it but I couldn't stop sobbing.
The anaesthesist, when he realised that I was in tears, was like, all panicky, "woah don't cry!!! It's kinda be okay!!!" while one of the students wiped my eyes with a tissue.
-___-
Fml embarrassing to the max LOL.
The last thing I remember was feeling drowsy and (finally) catching a glimpse of my doctor as I was carted into another room. I thought, finally.
And when I woke up, it was all over.
... sorry for the anticlimax.
(Apparently the actual colonoscopy only lasted like 10 minutes... and I waited like two hours O M G).
-------------------------------------------------------------
AFTERMATH:
My colonoscopy was supposed to be at 10:30am but was pushed back to 12:00pm (or was it 12:30?) because my doctor had an emergency operation he had to tend to. By the time I was wheeled back to my room (and omg, after the surgery I had to wait ANOTHER half hour lying shock still in the damn bed... and that was after my anaesthesia wore off fml) it was mid-afternoon already.
The beautiful afternoon sun, after days and nights of rain, awaited me! I was so sad though, it was a complete waste of a nice day because I was stuck in the hospital :( and yes... this is my view!
My Dad was waiting for me and he was very tentative about giving me food and water because apparently, one of the after effects of the anaesthesia was nausea. But I was starved, and I mean STARVED, not to mention dehydrated!
I gulped down like bucketloads of hot water right after and I didn't feel sick at all. Then I ordered red meat and tofu and fish and veggies (yes, two meals!) from the hospital canteen to boot. I really freakin' needed the red meat.
They gave us two sets of cutlery cos they thought I was sharing with my dad. *laughs* Do I look like I'm gonna share my food with you?
And guess what - I ended up waiting more than two hours AGAIN... the colonoscopy results actually came back pretty quickly.
I was presented with a few pictures of my colon (I'm still they're in the house somewhere, but I don't want to scan them in and gross you guys out) and apparently - get this - there is nothing wrong with my large intestine. Nothing.
So my constipation is caused by something else.
Oh, but the funniest thing is, when I looked at the colonoscopy pictures, I spotted a few small black dots on my intestine walls. I inspected them closely, then turned to my dad, wide-eyed...
"Are those... dragonfruit seeds?"
"Um... oh..."
We LOLed for so long. I've only eaten one dragonfruit since then (a far cry from my one to two dragonfruits a day before the surgery) because well... I guess the seeds never truly get flushed out of your system. I mean I had 2L of super strong laxatives AND two enema supplements... -.- and a few seeds still remained. Wtf.
I had to have additional blood tests done because the doctors suspected that my constipation was due to my hormones. And apparently my blood pressure was super low (well no shit, I'd barely eaten anything the past few days and had just been lying immobolised for two days).
Anyway, here are two pictures I took while waiting for the hospital bill. Which btw, came up to a wooping... sigh. I won't even say it. I guess I won't be going on vacation anymore until next summer, after I graduate from university (!)
At the hospital, text it!
(My eyes are covered because I looked so shit from not having enough nutrients/rest).
