So I went for my usual annual health screening, and results were great at first glance. Cholesterol dropped by quite a bit, all other indicators are normal other than the fact that I was still overweight with a fair bit of body fat percentage to work off. Except this CEA tumor marker which was above normal levels, and didn’t trigger any alarms until I checked last year’s report and realized that it has been above normal for two years in a row now. 

There’s a free follow up consultation for doctor to go through your report with you, which I usually ignore but thought it may be good to get some interpretation on what the elevated marker meant so booked a teleconsultation slot. Doc suggested that I can go for a specialist consultation and I agreed. Was expecting to get a recommendation letter that I can use to go find a specialist on my own (now come to think of it, if I had to do it myself I probably would end up procrastinating), but turns out clinic just helped me arrange for one and next thing I know the specialist clinic (colorectal specialist) had texted to arrange for a consultation. 

Duly went for the consultation. Specialist said such tests are usually not conclusive to begin with - just because it’s elevated doesn’t mean you have something, and just because it’s normal doesn’t mean you don’t have anything. Urgh fine. But, he added on to say, since I have already consulted him, he is obliged to recommend that I go for further tests which I kind of agreed to do. It was to involve CT scan, and also endoscopy and colonoscopy. 

Arranged for the sessions and before I knew it I was paying like $2k for the consultation and CT scan with the colonoscopy charges yet to come. And despite the clinic very matter-of-factly assuming that this can be claimed from insurance, there’s a bit of panic in me. And also it may mean I gotta pay a higher premium or something next year urgh, and I was regretting a bit for letting them arrange everything for me at a private clinic instead of public hospital. But oh well it is what it is. 

This was the week before I went home, so I scheduled both the CT scan and the scopes for the week after I came back. The CT scan was a bit uneventful other than the fact that the nurse kept telling me drink up before the scan, and the injection of a “contrast” left me with a huge bruise that took a couple of weeks to dissipate. It was the colonoscopy that was much more interesting. 

I was to do bowel prep before the session, which technically is considered a day surgery. Idea is I had to clear my bowels so that they don’t get any nasty surprises when they insert the scope, on either end of my digestive system. Oh to make things easier I was also supposed to avoid certain foods three days before the procedure, mostly fibrous food which is understandable, and also milk and cheese for some reason. And special emphasis on mushrooms. Lol both doc and nurse were like “yeah we always find mushrooms when we do the scope” and made a disgusted face so that advice really stuck with me and I made it a point to not disappoint them hahaha. 

Back to bowel prep, on the morning of the procedure I was given 3 packets of laxatives, each packet was to be mixed with 1L of water (!) and to be drunk an hour apart, which meant I had to down 3 liters of water in 3 hours. The thought was quite daunting, though what I kind of didn’t expect was that the effect was so instantaneous. Within 10 minutes of the first packet (which tasted terrible btw, nurse recommended mixing it with honey but it didn’t help much imo) I can feel my stomach turning and 5 minutes later I couldn’t hold it in anymore and just went to explode (sorry). I ended up going to toilet like every 20minutes eventually and so most of the 3 liters of water didn’t actually stay in the body, makes it easier to keep chugging down the mixture. By the middle of the second hour whatever I was expelling was actually very clean already (it should be a clear yellowish liquid) so I felt super clean inside lolol. But yeah I wouldn’t want to do this again primarily coz it just tasted terrible. 

Smartly scheduled the op on a Friday so I can WFH in the morning while doing bowel prep (and office wouldn’t have been a very conducive environment for this) and luckily I had the whole weekend to recover from this even if that wasn’t the initial intention because I didn’t think it would be that taxing, more on that later. In fact I thought I would be out and about by mid afternoon and can go for a cafe run in the area but little did I know. 

Anyway, made my way to Mt Alvernia around noon (recommendation was to take Grab but I gamely took bus instead). Registered, had all the costs explained to me (it ended up costing about $5k) and that they will file a claim to insurance company so didn’t have to do anything (though at the back of my mind I was like what if the claim got rejected), then was brought up to the ward, though had to fork out I think 50cents to purchase a mask. Like pffft you all charged so much and couldn’t just include a mask? Assigned a bed, and then I was told that my procedure was scheduled at 3.30pm (oh so late ah?).  

Changed to a surgery gown and then it’s a lot of waiting, hooked up to various tubes to monitor my vitals, being wheeled around on my bed to various stations, and answering questions repeatedly on whether I ate or drank this morning. Kind of listless by the time I entered the op room, and also really hungry coz I hadn’t ate anything since the evening before and I was looking forward to cafe. 

I was to be sedated for the procedure. Which is understandable coz I guess having something up your ass probing around your insides doesn’t sound like an enjoyable or comfortable process. Prior to that there’s a lot of indemnity forms etc that I had signed confirming that doc had explained to me the risks of the procedures and all, but I may have missed the part that I would be completely unconscious lol. 

I really thought I’d be conscious, just that I won’t feel like maybe the bottom half of my body or something but no. I remembered doc telling me to stay awake for as long as possible, then I was conscious of me drooling through the mouthpiece, I probably blinked once then I was gone hahahahah. Coz the next thing I know someone was waking me up and telling me that it’s over and I was like, huh? 

The whole 断片 experience was kinda novel for me I dunno why. And slightly disappointing coz I kinda want to know how the procedure was conducted, just without the discomfort. Oh well. Doc asked me if I remembered anything, I was like no and he went “Good! That’s what we want.” And I was left with a wtf just happened feeling.  

Anyway, wheeled back to the ward, got to eat finally and chose bread/milo over porridge but damn, my next bed neighbour had porridge and it actually smelled really good. Nurse came over with a fully completed report and went about explaining to me - basically mostly good except that they found a polyps (first time hearing this term, had to google) in my stomach and removed it, and will be conducting some tests on it. Arranged for a follow up consultation, gave me meds and basically that was it. But my blood pressure was still quite low so had to wait for it to go back up, ward nurse came over to monitor once in a while and when it finally went above 100 she discharged me. And that was close to 7pm, so much for having the PM off hahaha. Though I still went to cafe for dinner. 

And so it turns out that having the whole weekend to recover was really a smart choice coz I actually needed it. Saturday I was feeling a bit lethargic and late afternoon when I went to gym, my head started throbbing after a slightly heavier lat pulldown set and I had to give up the entire session (luckily it wasn’t a paid one, just my own training in condo gym). There was a warning to avoid strenuous exercises and I didn’t think gym counted as one hahahah. But the next afternoon I went for a scheduled PT session and it was alright already. 

Follow up, the polyps was found to be benign. CT scan also didn’t turn up anything abnormal. Doc said I am alright, can repeat the tumor marker test next year and if it’s still above normal then that just means this is my baseline already and I should be ok if it’s maintained at this level. And the advice is to repeat colonoscopy when I’m in my 40s so nurse was like, “we’ll call you to set up a consultation in about 10 years time!” lol I don’t know if they are being serious or not. 

So that’s the end of the whole episode! I didn’t think much about going through the whole thing alone, because I’m very used to it at this point in my life but I was kinda grateful that I had a couple of friends that checked in on me throughout the afternoon after they found out I was doing this, both of which had parents with cancer so were quite familiar with the process so they thought it was a big deal and kinda chided me for not taking it very seriously lol (really, I found it more interesting rather than scary). So that was really nice. 

10 years later, then.