Saturday, September 13, 2008

On the road again.

We’ve been travelling a lot these past months and rarely seem to be home. This weekend is no different.

NQD went to Berlin yesterday for work and is staying today as well.



I, on the other hand, had my own little adventure. I walked about 800m down the road to this place, to have my first experience (well, second if you include the consultation) with the Danish health care system for which some of my 50% tax pays to run. I was also about to become a movie star of sorts.

I wasn’t going to write about this but I figure its probably the sort of thing no one likes to discuss or do and really can’t compare to a weekend in a swish hotel in Berlin, drinking beer and eating delicious German stodge and strolling Unter den Linden. Only that it might save your life.

My mother died of bowel cancer at 61, which isn’t very old, as did a very dear friend and she was far too young, with a 12 year-old son. As my mother’s side of the family also has several cancer genes as family members, I thought it was probably time I should be checked-up.

There’s a system to this procedure. It involves drinking a litre of the most revolting drink you can imagine and spending most of the night on the toilet. Just when it’s over, at around six in the morning, you drink another litre and the fun begins again.

Still, at least now I now know how many tiles there are on the walls in our bathroom.

All that finally over, I marched off to Frederiksberg Hospital, feeling like I was washed out (I guess I was) and suffering jet lag from tiredness.

In my best (don’t get excited) Danish, I announced who I was and what I was there for – a colonoscopy – or ‘Koloskopi’ på dansk. A very sweet nurse told me I was expected, which was all well and good, except ‘to be expected’ wasn’t something I’ve covered in Danish, so I stood looking at her wondering what she’d just told me about myself.

Next I was whisked off, told to change into some very unfashionable hospital clothes and plonk myself down on my bed – which happened to be down the end of a hall, actually in the hall! I was too tired to care and the nurses were so lovely I couldn’t bring myself to question anything and I figured this was the simple part of a day of saying goodbye to my dignity! I couldn’t have been too concerned because I fell into a deep sleep, apparently snoring.

An hour or so later I was pushed on said bed up to the procedure room to be met by another nurse. She had a gravelly voice and joked and laughed away in Danish most of which I didn’t understand. Slightly sedated, before I knew it the doctor was in and with a rub and a push, a very long looking hose venture into a part of me I’d never seen before.

Certainly looking at the inside of your bowel on a TV screen isn’t quite as exciting as watching a foetus in an ultrasound but it did feel like that 70’s movie where they went inside that scientists body.

You can feel the camera work it’s way around, which feels weird but not painful and then it’s all over – in about ten minutes. Really, it’s that quick. I’d expected to be in there for hours.

And that was it – all over. So really, it’s so easy today to get checked, it well worth the effort and the sacrifice of a little dignity as others gaze up your nether region, because if you happen to become symptomatic from one of these cancers, you might have a bigger struggle ahead.

Yeah, okay, your dignity flies out the window for ten minutes!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW

sorry for my insensitivity....but ewww...I don't think I ever want to do a colonscopy

DreaminginDanish said...

Good goin'! That was brave! And for once a story about nice nurses :)

EKinDK said...

Hurrah for YOU! I like your idea about how it's so worth it for a small sacrifice of your dignity. Here's hoping all's clean as a whistle up there! :)

NotQuiteDanish said...

writer: I had a feeling you would squirm! lol. Still, you probably don't need it. I don't think bowel cancer is as prevalent in Asia as the West who have stuffed our selves on bad food.Still, you should do the ones that can affect you - like cervical and breast.

Indra: It was brave for me. I am usually too private for this kind of thing but I am glad I did it now.

EK: It was 'almost' clean as a whistle and I apologised for hte small section (which I saw on the screen) that wasn't. Seriously, I felt like a poor housekeeper when I saw that part :( It's amazing the kind of apologies we can come up with! lol

Kelli Nørgaard said...

screw dignity.. I am so proud of you for doing this! Men are NOTORIOUS for not getting things checked before it is too late!
My paternal grandfather died of colon cancer and since he turned 50, my dad has annual colonoscopies, and no matter how gross or invasive the procedure is, I am so thankful he does it... And I am sure NQDII is thankful you are as well!!

NotQuiteDanish said...

Kelli: You are right about men being notoriously evasive about this (non evasive) sort of thing. While my life is no Princess Mary story, I'm not quite ready to die yet - although I have my days! :) I dunno, one day, after an Uncle was diagnosed with cancer, I just thought 'Geoffrey, just do it!'. And I decided to look on it as an adventure. Had they told me I had 'the grub' (as it is very 'commonly' - in the true sense of the word - referred to in Australia) at least I would have time to do a few things and write some tear-jerking letter to people I love.

Mind you, when my mother was diagnosed, she said, 'Bowel cancer?!! How am I going to tell people I have *bowel* cancer? It's not very exotic, is it?' LOL.