The DTF Old As Mold Club v. 40 IS The New 30! Kids Stay Out!

[Podaar]

By the way...
I'm having hernia surgery April 9th. Good times!

Good luck, Tick.

I had hernia surgery last summer!!

How the hell did you get a hernia? You don't even do yard work!!

April 6th.

Excellent!

[TAC]

I had hernia surgery last summer!!

How the hell did you get a hernia? You don't even do yard work!!

Hah!  I popped it a few years ago throwing the spare tire on top of the van before a Disney trip. I didn't even notice it until I was getting into the shower the next day. I didn't know what it was. I thought I had a giant tumor. I frantically called my doctor, and the receptionist, THE RECEPTIONIST!, says "yeah, it's probably just a hernia."

That's good to hear. I was told to plan on taking a week before returning to work. Does that sound about right?

I work in a grocery store, lifting and such, and I was out 2 1/2 weeks. I went back with no restrictions. My doctor said that the sooner I can return to normal activity, the better.

They sent me home with some Oxy's. I really tried to not take them. The first day or so wasn't bad, as the anesthesia was still lingering, and I probably was too active in the house that first day and then BAM! I was in PAIN! I ended up taking 3 or 4 Oxy's, but more or less walked the line of OD'ing on ibuprofen. For a couple of days, I literally need my son to pull me off the couch. I couldn't do it on my own.





As far as getting snipped, thankfully I didn't have to.
The Lovely Mrs TAC is five years older than me. She had our youngest when she was 39. I offered to get snipped, but she was on the pill, and it kept her "regular", until being regular was no longer an issue.

[jingle.boy]

When I got snipped the Dr. had told me at the consultation to shave the area prior to coming in. Wasn't very specific. So, morning of I'm in the shower and started prepping the area......yadda yadda yadda.....twenty minutes later I had razor shaved from about 6" above my knees to right around my belly button. ALL gone....smooth as a baby's bottom. I'll admit....I got a little carried away 

So, fast forward to getting into the room and this Medical Assistant comes in......she couldn't have been a day over 21, probably had just graduated whatever 2 year program a week before......pretty cute.....and she instructs me to remove my clothes and lay on the table and cover myself with the linen.

She comes back in.....just her and I'm laying there and she comes over with a bottle of iodine or something.....lifts the linen and immediately notices I had deforested my entire lower half and made the comment that I had taken the preparation pretty serious. She then just begins to manipulate Jr. down there spreading the iodine or whatever it was all over. It was such a weird feeling because until that moment it'd been 8 years since any other woman other than my wife had 'handled' me so intimately     

I was so uncomfortable I blurted out......"So, my name's Gary and I enjoy hiking and playing golf"  She just grinned a bit and went about her business. It was such an awkward experience. Then the Dr. comes in and got a look at the excessive manscaping I had undertook and said "Looks like you covered prepping the area" in a funny/sarcastic type tone.

Oh gawd... I'm in tears I'm laughing so hard. 

#coolstorybro

[King Postwhore]

Gary that story is amazing!

I have a horror story to tell that All will laugh at the end.




Does anybody want to cry from laughing so hard?

[gmillerdrake]

Does anybody want to cry from laughing so hard?

Of course!!

[King Postwhore]

So before I when through chemo, I had to get my spleen out.  It grew to 4 times the average size. Once they took it out I was in the hospital for 3 weeks.  I couldn't get the fever down that was 104.   That was constant.  They decided to put me in a thermal bag.  It could either heat you up or cool you down.

The main nurse during the day told me told me what the gameplan was to lower my temp.  The nighttime nurse came in and set me up.  See had a rectal thermometer that she had to insert so they could monitor my temp.  That was no fun.

So I woke up in the morning to the main nurse screaming at the night time nurses.

"What are you doing!  You set the bag to 50 degrees!  You could have given him hypothermia"1

So she turns it off and unzipped the bag only to lose it again,

"Why did you use the rectal thermometer?!  He's not incapacitated!  You could take his temperature ever few hours orally"!

[gmillerdrake]

    


Be honest, you requested the rectal thermometer?

[Podaar]

Read the nurses quotes with a Soprano's Jersey accent! Just do it.

You're welcome.

 

[King Postwhore]

 

That was a rough night of sleep with something up inya. 

The look on that nurses face of horror.  I can laugh about it now.

[Podaar]

Hey, King. If you went camping and woke up with your hands duct taped behind you, pants around your ankles, and a condom hanging out of your ass...would you tell anyone?

[TAC]

Hey, King. If you went camping and woke up with your hands duct taped behind you, pants around your ankles, and a condom hanging out of your ass...would you tell anyone?

I think he just did! 

[King Postwhore]

Hey, King. If you went camping and woke up with your hands duct taped behind you, pants around your ankles, and a condom hanging out of your ass...would you tell anyone?

Hey, at least it was a female!!

[Podaar]

 

[Orbert]

Had the C-scope done today.  I'm 56 this year, but this was my first.  I know, I was bad.  But I finally did it, so ha!

Two polyps found and removed.  If they're not pre-cancerous, I'm good for another 10 years.  If they're pre-cancerous, do it again in five.  The guy doing the scoping has been doing it for 24 years.  He said we will wait for the biopsies for the official word, but in his opinion, they looked pre-cancerous.  Nothing to worry about, but we will definitely check again in five years.  Okay.

[Podaar]

Excellent, Orbert! Best of luck on the biopsy.

[Orbert]

Thanks.  I'm expecting them to be "pre-cancerous", since the guy doing it said they looked like it to him, and he's got 24 years of experience, but when one of the choices is "cancerous", then I'll take "pre-cancerous".  It just means that they may have developed into something bad, but no biggie, they're gone now.  If they'd been "just weird bumps" then I'd be clear for 10 years.  If it takes five years for anything to even grow into something dangerous, then okay, I guess we'll check again in five years.

Disgusting graphic report of prep - skip if you can't handle the truth

People kept telling me that the prep for the procedure is much worse than the procedure itself.  True, since I was under general anaesthesia for the procedure, therefore it was nothing.  But I was expecting 24 hours of near-misery as the prep, and to be honest, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expecting.  Not exactly fun, but literally painless.

The stuff you drink is obviously meant to clean you out.  It's a liquid that fools your body into getting routed through the solids channel, which it flushes out on its way through.  Diarrhea is usually fucking tragic, but on my second or third trip to the bathroom, it occurred to me that the one thing that makes diarrhea so tragic is the pain.  Your bowels are wringing themselves to get whatever is in there the hell out.  In this case, I knew what going on, and there was no pain at all.  There was the weird feeling of liquid passing through the solids channel, and the associated mess at the exit point, but really, that was it.

I took the day off, and just sat at the computer most of the day, playing games and surfing the net.  Every 20 minutes or so, I'd get the notification that I needed to walk the 20 feet to the bathroom.  Okay.  From what I'd heard, I was expecting to have literally 2 seconds to get my ass there and bare or there would be a tragedy.  No, not at all.  The notification was pretty normal, I head to the bathroom, pass some stuff in two or three "rounds", then clean up as usual.  15 or 20 trips total over five or six hours, then I went to bed.  I actually thought that maybe I was doing it wrong.  Again, it wasn't a walk in the park, but it wasn't the hours of agony and discomfort I'd been expecting.  Oh yeah, I was pretty stoned, too.  That probably helped.  No fucking way was I going to face this event sober, the prep or the procedure.

Next morning, day of the procedure, I drank the other half gallon of prep stuff.  Lemon flavored, also not nearly as horrible as I'd been led to believe.  This time I starting getting nauseous, so I visited the top shelf of the closet, stepped out the back door for a few minutes, and no more nausea.  My wife said that that was a bad idea, since it does dehydrate you, and also I will be going under general anaesthesia.  Yep, both true.  But I didn't care.  I'm not going to be nauseous for the next three hours, and if I don't get quite as clean inside as they'd like, well, they've seen worse I'm sure.

I just don't care any more.  I'm going to be on a table, unconscious, as a guy runs a camera up my ass, and actually does a snip or two while he's in there, I'm gonna face this my way.  After a total of about six hours, I'm sure the non-tobacco had worn off, but waking up from general, I kinda felt the same.  On the way home, my wife driving of course, I told her Hey, this is kinduva nice buzz, I wonder... oh yeah.  They probably wouldn't be up to selling me some of it.  By time we were home, I was mostly clear-headed.  Remedied that once we got home, and the rest of the day was cake.

Seriously, though.  Not nearly as horrible, either the day before or the day of, as I'd been led to believe.

[Podaar]

I wonder if the severity of the cleansing process depends on what the individual doctors prescribe. The first time I had the procedure I had to go to the pharmacy to get a jug that was about 1/4 full of powder. You added water to it and shook it up for awhile then drank it in doses over the course of the evening and the next morning. The second time, I was instructed to get regular laxatives right off the shelf and overdose (compared to the product instructions) by mixing it with Gatorade.

I clearly remember the first experience as being more urgent which required me to do what my step-father described as "the green apple two-step". A sort of clenched shuffle that is simultaneously slow and rushed. IMO, the worst part is the incessant clean up which can cause irritation.

All in all, I think Orbert is right. We tend to exaggerate the experience.

[TAC]

This thread makes me feel so young.

[Orbert]

Interesting.  This was my first, and I was prescribed the gallon jug with powder, which I filled up with water and shook well.  It came with a "Lemon Flavor Packet" which I also added.  I like lemon.  I drank half the night before, and the other half the morning of.

The instructions mentioned that drinking so much liquid in a relatively short time can cause nausea, but I already knew going in that I'd also be doing something that has the nice side-effect of mitigating nausea.  It may have lessened the other effects as well.  At no time did I feel an "emergency".  I had at least as much time to get to the bathroom as I normally would have; it just happened a lot more often.  When I got the first mild wave of nausea the morning of, after drinking two cups of it, I immediately went for my home remedy, and all was fine from that point on.

[jingle.boy]

The instructions I got call for an OTC med - BiPeglyte Kit.  Day before is a tablet in the morning, and one in the evening.  6pm start drinking the BiPeglyte (powder mixed with water) every 10 minutes until it's gone, and the second pack 4 hours before the procedure - which means I gotta get up at 5am.

[Grappler]

Day 3 post snip (well 2 full days and the afternoon afterwards) and I'm feeling good.  The swelling was mostly gone after last night, and I'm only icing on occasion today.  I'm finishing up the norcos and will just take ibuprofin until the rest of the aches go away sometime this week.  I even managed an hour in jeans today to run an errand. 

Hilarious stories...thankfully my doc told me where I'd need to shave.  Though I've always used an electric razor, so I spent a week practicing with a real razor on my face.  I wasn't going to have my very first time using a real razor  to shave my balls.

[Podaar]

[TAC]

Wow, Gregg, you look a lot like Dr. Evil in that picture.

[CrimsonSunrise]

Having had my digestive system modified I knew beforehand there was no way I could do the normal prep.  Doc gave me a nice low volume prep that was stress free for me.  My understanding is that anyone can request it (My wife did, and got it), just be firm if needed.  They want your insurance $$$$ 

[Orbert]

I wonder what the deal is, then.  The jug of powder (just add water!) cost me like five dollars after insurance.  I suppose, given the choice, I'd still rather have taken a bunch of laxatives, but I can't see how they're making a ton of money off my insurance.  The insurance might pay for the meds, but the doctor doesn't see kickback on that or anything.

[CrimsonSunrise]

So my understanding is there are 3 different preps.  Regular, Low volume, which I had, and the pill option.  The one I did was something like 16oz or so.  Wasn't bad.  My wife was told the difference with the preps is how well you get cleaned out.  That's why docs like the reg prep best.

[El Barto]

So are all you guys rushing out to get colonoscopied in higher at-risk groups, or were there other screening indicators suggesting it was necessary? Seems to me that we're moving away from the colonoscopy as a routine testing measure for people who aren't in higher risk groups. There's been no research to indicate that it's more effective than less invasive testing done more frequently, and there are definite risks involved. When the Canadians and Europeans both agree something we do religiously isn't actually worthwhile, I tend to think that money has become the greater motivating factor.

[King Postwhore]

So are all you guys rushing out to get colonoscopied in higher at-risk groups, or were there other screening indicators suggesting it was necessary? Seems to me that we're moving away from the colonoscopy as a routine testing measure for people who aren't in higher risk groups. There's been no research to indicate that it's more effective than less invasive testing done more frequently, and there are definite risks involved. When the Canadians and Europeans both agree something we do religiously isn't actually worthwhile, I tend to think that money has become the greater motivating factor.

They say 50 is when you should.  Me, I had to have it done when I was 40 because I was having digestive issues and the did a colonoscopy and well as an endoscopy looking to see what the problem was. 

[Podaar]

@EB

As for me, it's simply because my doctor didn't provide an alternative and I didn't know to ask for one. When it comes up again in five years, or so, I'll be sure to ask.

I suspect you're right about money being an issue. It seems to me that the doctors have invested a lot of time and money into making an assembly line type clinic for the procedures. The goal seems to be to get as many people through in a day as possible. It's all very efficient and expensive. But because it's considered "preventative" the insurance companies tend to pay well.

[jingle.boy]

Family history of polyps.  Non cancerous, but still a history none-the-less.  Cancer history as well, but not colon cancer.  c-scope is still the most effective screening method for pre-cancerous polyps - and I'd rather catch something pre-cancerous.  My GP said that other fecal tests only catch them when they are bloody - and at that point, things could very well be progressing towards cancer.

It's not like I'm rushing to do it, just being proactive and preventative.

[gmillerdrake]

I'm 42 and I haven't been to see a Doctor for even a normal check up since my wife and I purchased life insurance 8 years ago. I do the yearly screening that my work does that checks all the general blood work, Blood Pressure and what not but I haven't actually been to a doctor for a visit since back then.

I know I should probably do that and get a 'real' check up and what not.....just haven't done it.

[El Barto]

C-scoping is the gold standard. That's why it's the go-to when money is no object (which is how we regard healthcare in this country). It's just that not everybody actually needs the gold standard when other avenues are still fairly effective (though not to the same degree). There's also the defensive medicine aspect, where doctors prescribe the kitchen sink to CYA. I know that when I turn 50 this is a discussion I'll certainly be having with my doctor, who tends to be pretty aggressive with such things.

On a somewhat related note, I read a while back that doctors are no performing fecal transplants. Lots of people wind up without some of the necessary flora in their gut to take care of business, and some of the critters will become extinct. Critters that don't come back just because you start eating fruit flavored yogurt. They go in and insert a poop-Popsicle to, eh, repopulate the species. I wonder if this is becoming a bigger problem as more people are having to completely clear out their GI tract for precautionary procedures.

[King Postwhore]

I know that it wasn't approved when my mom got C-Diff, but now the procedure is approved that when a person gets C-Diff, you take an immediate family's fecal matter and inject it to cure the C-Diff.  It helps with weakened immune systems build back bacteria to battle those issues.

[CrimsonSunrise]

Fecal transplants?  HOLY Crap (pun intended) We've gone around the bend now........

I did my C scope because of my age and Cancer history.

[King Postwhore]

Well guys and gals. My breathing wasn't right past few days it reminded me of having a blood clot after surgery when I had my spleen taken out because of the cancer in 2001.

So I'm at the hospital hey they ran a whole battery of tests. The blood work came back. I might have a blood clot.   I just had a CAT scan and if it is a blood clot they're keeping me overnight. Oh fun fun.