Dear Regular Readers,
Welcome to this week’s edition of our newsletter and I hope there is something featured in it that is of interest to you.
I seem to be struggling a bit in terms of finding the time to tap out the remaining lines of my recent and ongoing medical issues, but hopefully I can catch up a little today as I have the time to do so.
The last time my fingers danced from one key to another on my computer keyboard I left off at the point at which I had made my appointment to have an upper GI endoscopy procedure, so without further ado I would like to see if this week I can conclude at least that part of my story.
The following day (January 5th), I went to my office for 08:00 as usual; my hospital appointment was from 10.00, so I had a bit of time to check my emails, reply to a few, send a few off and talk with my work colleagues about any urgent matters that needed to be dealt with before leaving for the hospital. I left my office in reasonable time; however, due to a signal problem there was a delay of about 10~15 minutes on the train line, so I arrived a little later than I was expecting which I don’t like to do, especially when visiting hospitals to have a procedure of the sort I was scheduled to have done. I was still on time, but with literally only minutes to spare I quickly had to go through the usual Covid related routine of hand sanitizing and having my body temperature automatically taken before I could enter into the hospital. What with all the rushing about my temperature reading was higher than usual at just fractionally below 37 degrees which concerned me because with a reading of 37 degrees I would not be able to enter into the hospital.
When I arrived at the gastroenterology department, I handed over all the paperwork I had previously been given to fill in and I was presented with a thermometer (one of those digital types) and I was asked to take my temperature and report it back. I switched on the thermometer, set it to zero, placed it under my arm and waited, but there was no sound to indicate that my temperature had been taken. I removed the thermometer and tried again, but the same happened. I must have tried about 5/6 times, but nothing at all; I figured it was either the thermometer that didn’t like me or it was kaput. I reported back to the person on the front desk that I could not get a temperature reading and I asked her for another thermometer to try; she duly obliged and watched as I switched on the replacement thermometer, set it to zero and placed it under my arm. Believe it or not, the same thing happened (and with the receptionist watching), it was not until the third time that the thermometer made the desired sound and a reading of 36.6 presented itself.
With my temperature finally taken and recorded I was asked to sit and wait until my name was called. There were a few other people waiting with me, one guy sitting opposite me appeared to have just had his endoscopy done as he was looking a bit flushed which was probably due to the sedation wearing off. Another guy sitting next to me had clearly not had enough sleep the night before (probably due to worrying about having his upper GI endoscopy procedure done) as he was peacefully snoring away with his mouth wide open. I waited for about 15/20 minutes and then a nurse appeared; she confirmed my name and then guided me through to the anesthesia room which was just in front of the room where the procedure was scheduled to take place.
Upon entering this room, I saw about 5/6 people behind curtains lying horizontally with little movement and immediately deduced that those people must have been sedated and they were waiting to be shown into the procedure room. I was then told to sit down and asked whether I wanted to be sedated or have a numbing agent applied up my nose in preparation for my procedure. I confirmed that I had already written into my forms that I wanted to be awake for the whole procedure and I clarified that I wanted to have the endoscope inserted through my left nostril; I then instructed the nurse to anesthetize away. From what I recall, there were 3 steps involved in the anesthetizing process; first, the nurse sprayed a numbing agent up my left nostril and waited about 5 minutes; she then sprayed a further numbing agent (probably the same type) up the same nostril and again waited for about 5 minutes; by this time the feeling in my left nostril had pretty much left me and my throat also felt numb due to some of the anesthesia trickling down into the back of it. The nurse approached me a further time to check to see if the anesthesia had done its job and I reassured her that I could not feel my left nostril nor the back of my throat. The nurse then placed a kind of plastic tube just inside my nasal passage which at first I thought was a guide to allow the endoscope probe to be inserted into my nasal passage and it would stay in place throughout the procedure; however, I later learned it was to allow the nasal passage to become accustomed to the size of the endoscope probe before it was inserted.
With a plastic tube stuck up my left nostril and a feeling of some trepidation I sat and waited for a further 10 or so minutes before I was called into the endoscopy procedure room. Upon entering the room, I was told to remove my shoes and position myself on the hospital trolley in a kind of fetus position lying on my left side. There were 3 people around me at the time, the gastroenterologist and two nurses on either side of me to help me through the procedure which they did with kind words of comfort and support. In front of me was all the monitoring equipment and at the side of all that was all the ancillary equipment that is used in gastroenterology such as the endoscopy stack itself and the suction equipment. Over near the wall was a computer and various other monitors.
The gastroenterologist approached me and introduced himself politely; he immediately removed the plastic tube from inside my left nostril and the then started to insert the endoscope into the nostril and slowly down the back of my throat into my esophagus and finally into the lower part of my stomach or duodenum. I have to say that at first I had a terrible gagging feeling which fortunately started to leave me as the endoscope moved further down into my stomach. When compared to having an endoscope placed into your mouth and then down your throat, in my opinion, having one inserted into your nose and then down your throat and into your stomach is far less invasive. However, despite the less invasiveness attached to a nasal endoscopy, my eyes were shut throughout most of the procedure apart from a couple of occasions when I quickly opened them to take a look at the monitor in front of me. As I was not wearing my glasses at the time this seemed like a pointless exercise as I couldn’t really see anything, at least nothing I could make out; I guess I just wanted to get some indication as to how much longer I had to remain lying on the hospital trolley with an endoscope inside me. During the procedure the two nurses kept comforting me by rubbing my shoulders and back gently and occasionally coming out with words of comfort and support, as well as occasionally reporting on progress.
It seemed like I’d been laid on my left side for an absolute age when finally one of the nurses told me that the procedure was just about coming to an end and almost as she said it I could feel the gastroenterologist slowly withdrawing the endoscope. I don’t think I have ever burped so much in my life as when the endoscope was being withdrawn from my stomach up through my esophagus and nasal passage. With the endoscopy fully removed from my body I was instructed by a nurse to slowly sit up and spend a couple of moments to collect myself before attempting to move away from the hospital trolley. After collecting myself, I got off the hospital trolley, put on my shoes and collected my jacket from a clothes box at the side of the trolley. I thanked all concerned for what I thought had been a procedure fairly well executed and I left the room. Once outside the procedure room I reported to the receptionist and I was told to sit and wait to receive some documents that I would eventually present to the doctor that I was scheduled to see about an hour later.
After waiting for about 10 minutes or so I was presented with my test results and with a final goodbye to all the nurses that assisted me, off I went to the gastroenterology department to hand in my documents to the doctor’s receptionist and sit and wait to see the doctor. I will have to leave it there for this evening as my dinner calls. I will hopefully resume and conclude this story next week, so until then, have a good weekend and stay safe.
