Well aren’t we all, given it’s the Bake Off final, I’m a Celeb and Masterchef Professionals are ALL NOW ON! A right old TV fest if that’s what you fancy; right up my street but obvs not for everyone.
This is quite a quick one my friends as, every time I swallow, I’m reminded of the perfectly not very nice thing I had yesterday. No, not a homemade lunch from the carer (wouldn’t know!); afternoon delight from the carer (sorry, mini-carer, that doesn’t really happen, as your mother is indeed very old and prefers to watch Escape to the Country of a pm).
No – I had to go in for an EBUS. Endobrochoscopy under ultrasound.
At this point, I need to acknowledge and applaud two partners of two of my girlfriends (ie, there’s four in this marriage; I’ve not crossed a line, and if I had, I would have applied the correct placement of the apostrophe. Lady bush intacta.) These chaps are going to lol when they read this, and pull me right down for not womanning up. How they did/do it in their treatment, I don’t know.
The intent behind this is to take biopsies from the lymph nodes which sit outside the lungs. Given the little love has made its way into the lymph nodes in the lungs, with what they call extracapsular spread (described to me as the pips bursting out of a grape – should’ve got seedless if you ask me), it’s time to see where else the squatter has pitched up.
I had been dreading this; given my last bronchoscopy had been a rigid one (metal tubey thing, therefore under general anaesthetic), and what with me and my terrible gag reflex ( stop it, Bristol Sares!), I can’t say I was awash with excitement.
This was to be a floppy, vs rigid (and lord knows fellow post-50 girls, how often do we hope for those these days??) bronchoscopy, with a camera and a pair of scissors attached. I mean, not an actual pair of scissors – but something snippy to do a clippy of anything angry-looking down there.
Fully prepared (early night before, nil by mouth, persuading myself I don’t mind big things being shoved down my throat 🧐 – not a familiar experience), up I turn. A door opens and I’m amazed to see that I’m on A WARD. With two others, one of whom looks like she passed away several weeks ago, and a gentleman opposite who, quite frankly, doesn’t look like he’s even going to get into the room where they do the thingy.
Gulp.
The thingy room is a mini operating theatre, locked off, just beyond the ward. The gentleman goes in – all I can hear for the next 30 minutes is coughing, gagging, shouting, a massive great THUD; and then back he comes. Looking remarkably similar in terms of the state of his mortality as Fanny Adams next to me – who might well have passed again already.
My turn. I’m thrilled, can’t wait to get in there. I’m concerned they’re wheeling me in on a bed when I could perfectly well have cartwheeled – and I needed the steps – but hey, it’s great, I’ll go with.
First up – cannula- easy. Except I get the very new student nurse and…due to the blood thinners for the PE X 2, I bleed like a stuck pig all over the floor.
Next stop: local anaesthetic spray to back of throat. To be honest, the experience and effect of that was so great, I thought the whole bloody thing was done there and then. The effect was that my throat was so numbed I could not feel myself swallowing. Which told my brain I was choking. Uh oh.
Then, the sedative drugs, through my (literally) bleeding cannula. Ahhh – relief at last, thought I, as the woozy boozy cocktail went in.
‘We’re going to put the bronchoscope in now’, said someone, far off in my fairyland dreams.
I remember a long wiggly thing going in places I didn’t want it to…gagging and coughing and extending limbs..and maybe, possibly, fighting back. I vaguely recall a doctor telling me to calm down.
Next thing I know, I’m in the recovery room and they’re trying to wake me up.
Usually, the clinician who’s done the procedure is there to tell you how it went. I asked the nurse if they were coming round. She went very pale.
They called the carer after two hours and told him it was time to come and get me – and could he hurry? 🙄😬
I’m still in memory denial; I got home, slept 13 hours, I have a sore throat today but all seems to be ok??
I remember that I was given a discharge letter as I left.
In it, it says:
‘Patient did not tolerate procedure’.
Whoops.
Waiting for the GBH charge, any day now.
Pip pip (Though obvs, I’m going seedless from now on 😂😘😘)
Who's going to get the chicken? 
Oh sweetie, what a pain. Hope you don’t have to do it again. It sounds horrendous. But you have to do what you have to do, and I hope you are in good hands. Lots of ‘bon courage’ coming your way over the Channel.
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