Post 3 :13th July

The Wrong diagnosis

I can’t believe it. A week later and the pains are back, just like before. I can’t pass anything through my bowel. The spasms are excruciating. We try to go out, but it is obvious we need to return home quickly. I can’t eat and I can hardly drink. This is not good. I am frightened. I go back to my GP; he is concerned, and thinks I may need to go back to the hospital. By the early hours I realise he is right. This time they are horrid in A&E. The X-ray shows only that I am constipated.
“I am not admitting you with constipation.” The surgeon’s tone is arrogant and patronising. They send me home after five hours with some suppositories. I spend a miserable day and night in pain until I can stand it no longer. By Sunday I am on the phone to the emergency doctor. They advise we go straight to Out of Hours surgery at St Mary’s. Chris and I take a taxi. He won’t let me drive. He thinks they will keep me in. Hastily we pack a bag. I hate this. I feel like a freak. No one understands my pain and discomfort. I feel more wretched than I can ever remember.
The doctor at the Out of Hours surgery is wonderful. He can see what is happening and makes an accurate diagnosis with no scan and no X -ray. He is on the phone immediately:
“I have a young lady with severe abdo’ pain. I believe there is a sinister blockage. I want to admit her straight away”. I know now that this man saves my life. He takes me round to A&E and ensures there is a bed for me back in Surgical.
This time the doctors are thorough. They send me for a scan and a colonoscopy. Gail, one of the team, comes round to see me shortly afterwards. She draws the curtain round my bed.
“We have seen a narrowing in your colon. We think that the likelihood is the mass is cancerous. Anything benign would not have the same effect.”
“No I don’t believe it is cancer,” I tell her with the inner certainty I must be immortal at least for a few more years.
She won’t let it go.
“You need to accept that you probably have cancer”. We are going to operate. We will have to open you up this time to remove the mass.”
I am gob smacked.