Last night, after months of arguing with Bupa, I finally saw a specialist at the London Bridge Hospital.
We covered my symptoms and the fact that some (wind) are improved by taking enzymes. He’s a little concerned about the weight-loss, though I explained some of my diet changes, as it seems somewhat rapid.
The plan of action:
- Blood work – rule out parasites and a couple of other conditions.
- Shove a camera down my throat, look at the lining of the intestines and take a sample for further analysis.
- Shove a camera up my arse, look at the lining of the bowel and take a sample for further analysis.
He’s going to be looking for inflammation either end, which indicates an irritable condition, and wants to quickly rule out Crohn’s disease and colitis as both those conditions are easily treated. He’s also going to test for coeliac disease and something else I can’t remember right now.
Thanks to the joy of private health care, I’m scheduled for the ‘top and tail’ next Thursday. So Wednesday will be spent with breakfast, a light lunch, a laxative for dinner (which makes me wonder the point of eating lunch) then a night wishing I had a padded toilet seat. Thursday will start with more yummy laxative, low blood sugar and almost certainly a serious case of the grumps. And no doubt it’ll be down hill from there…
At 5pm, I’ll be sedated, have a tube down my throat and have some of my insides removed. Then, having changed tools and despite my protestations that I never put out before a third date, he will ram a camera into my bottom. Well, I’ll be facing forward, but I hope it’ll be his camera.
I’ve been promised some still shots of the procedure but assuming the doctor will give permission, my chaperone, the ever wonderful and hardy stomached Jo, will be shooting some video. Dinner parties at mine will be awesome, oh yes.
This is the first proper step to resolving the issues and I’m happy to finally be at this point.
November 6th, 2009 12:31
I don’t mind what you have to go through Jonathan, so long as it resolves the smelly issue! :-)
November 28th, 2009 01:46
What about renting The Odeon in Camden Town and invite everyone you know?
(yes, I’m catching up with my RSS feeds..)