How a colonoscopy is carried out [Cancer Research UK]

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I HAVE over the years been known to while away the odd hour or two playing computer games, and am aware that there are many gamers raking in vast fortunes via fans watching along as they play on YouTube.

It struck me – during a procedure in the Royal Free this weekend – that watchalong web-hits could prove a great future revenue stream for the struggling NHS.

Wearing a bottomless gown lying on my side in a bed I became mesmerised by very pay-per-view worthy footage rolling live on a big screen in front of me, as a camera on a 1.5 metre-long selfie stick patrolled my colon.

This was a cavernous and bubbling red lava-like world – from whose bourn no traveller returns – and populated by mushroom-like globs of gut matter.

Two docs – both button mashing on control pads – would on discovery of one of these strangely-blue “polyps” instruct a lasso-like snare to extend out from behind the camera. It hooked around the glob, like an arcade grabber machine, leading one doc to command the other: “CUT!”

And we all moved on to the next “boss level”.

I have to admit that my “memory” of this whole colonoscopy experience is a little blurred, having been dosed up with the powerful opioid fentanyl. For example, I do remember wondering why the jolly staff around me seemed to be ignoring my insightful comments and questions during the procedure.

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I now think it was likely that I may have been babbling incoherently.

But there was no pain, only marginal discomfort in the latter stages when the camera rod would slip and had to be rammed in a little bit deeper.

I had been placed into the NHS bowel cancer fast-track programme after weeks of severe constipation blockages and some anxiety-inducing blood test results.

One of the removed polyps had the very early signs of colorectal cancer.

Rectum firmly crossed, it appears everything bad is out and, barring a few more checks, nothing has spread.

Throughout the process, I’ve been amazed at the speed and efficiency of the NHS since I first contacted Swiss Cottage GP Surgery over the internet one month ago.

Since then I’ve had several calls from the hospital – including one on Friday night precisely when I was supposed to take the first dose of laxative. There have been many letters, full of detail, and at each stage someone has called when they said they were going to call.

The nurses were, perhaps naturally given the field, very funny and put me at ease.

In the hospital, five of them worked on me as in a Formula 1 pitstop, putting in tubes and needle ports and babbling away to distract me until the blissful cloud of sedatives took effect. And as I was wheeled out I could see the next poor bastard, who had been waiting nervously before me, being brought in.

Having been made to feel a little special by these wonderful staff, I suddenly realised how I was in fact part of a long production line of patients – and all this on a Saturday afternoon.

I asked how many of these each doctor was doing each shift? “Too many,” the consultant said wearily. “At least 10 more today.”

It was reassuring to see a Royal College of Nursing union poster stuck up proudly in the endoscopy department reception.

Support the strikes, stand up for the NHS – and check your poo.

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