I have quite a little story. some may be able to identify and to others I say just beware. The following I would not wish on my worse enemy.
A couple weeks before Christmas my sister died of colon cancer. Long about January and February I started more and more thinking about myself and how I had never had a colonoscopy and decided to have one. I talked with the doc and they gave me a piece of paper to read over and toward the bottom it indicated that if you were on blood thinners you'd have to stop taking them for five days prior to the "procedure" I told them I had a problem with that in that once before about four years back I came off Plavix, one of my thinners, to have hernia surgery and ended up in t he emergency room the morning I was due the surgery because of blood clots hitting my leg. I was in the hospital five days. He told me he couldn't do the procedure unless I stopped taking them due to if he had to cut out polyps they would bleed and the blood thinners would make it worse.
I left his office uncertain as to what to do. I had another appointment that same day with my vascular doc who had an ultrasound done on my bad leg with the graft in it and according to him all was fine and it was wide open. I told him what the colon doctor said and he seemed to think in light of my graft being "wide open" I'd be ok to have the procedure and stop the Plavix as long as I could still take the aspirin. I'm on aspirin, Plavix and Warfarin.
I decided to chance it and had the colonoscopy on March 1st. I planned on starting Plavix back on saturday the next day, got up and all was fine until about 10:30...pain hit my leg. It hurt bad and my foot turned pale and my big toe felt like someone had hit it with a baseball bat. I managed to find some left over Oxycodone in the cabinet and took one. Abut 20 minutes later it was better but I called paramedics to come out anyway. I told them what was going on and they took me to the emergency room where I spent some five hours. They gave my another ultrasound and the radiologist found no blood clots but the graft in my lef was clotting up. The gave me a shot of Lovenox and sent me home to notify my vascular doc on Monday.
I called him Monday, told him what was going on and he told me to come over. After accessing my foot he gave me a prescription for Oxycodone twice as strong as what I had at home and set up a surgery for that Wednesday. Meanwhile I'm popping Oxycodone every 3-4 hours when the pain in my big toe would come back. It just wasn't getting enough blood. I had one hell of a time sleeping Monday and Tuesday.
Day of the surgery, Wednesday at 1:00 I told them no catheters because they hurt and I couldn't pee afterwards. They apparently didn't hear me and did it anyway but took it out before I woke up some 4-5 hours later. He worked on me, according to his nurse, some 4 1/2 hours. I felt groggy and incoherent and felt I could pee over the moon but couldn't I knew they had put that catheter in me at that point. Finally, I was able to pee about an ounce and it felt like someone jerking barbed wire out of me. I was sweating bullets and it went on like that the rest of the day and night. Finally about 3:00am I got mad and tried to pee again and twisted the wrong way. Suddenly, I felt someone warm running down my but and leg and thought I had spilled the container I had to pee in. It was blood spurting everywhere. I panicked and couldn't find the nurses call button so hollered out loud I was bleeding to death. Two of them came in and one put so much pressure on the would I thought I'd die-especially having to pee so bad anyway. They stopped it thankfully.
Trying to end this, I'll never have another colonoscopy. I can't afford to. It jeopardized my foot and leg comping off the blood thinners so next time they want me to have one to them I just say, good luck. No one should go through that sort of thing. The two polyps found were not cancerous and if they want me to have another in 4-5 years fine but no more coming off Plavix...for any reason.
So, if you didn't have anything to do on this Friday night and you thought you had a rough week, read this again.
A couple weeks before Christmas my sister died of colon cancer. Long about January and February I started more and more thinking about myself and how I had never had a colonoscopy and decided to have one. I talked with the doc and they gave me a piece of paper to read over and toward the bottom it indicated that if you were on blood thinners you'd have to stop taking them for five days prior to the "procedure" I told them I had a problem with that in that once before about four years back I came off Plavix, one of my thinners, to have hernia surgery and ended up in t he emergency room the morning I was due the surgery because of blood clots hitting my leg. I was in the hospital five days. He told me he couldn't do the procedure unless I stopped taking them due to if he had to cut out polyps they would bleed and the blood thinners would make it worse.
I left his office uncertain as to what to do. I had another appointment that same day with my vascular doc who had an ultrasound done on my bad leg with the graft in it and according to him all was fine and it was wide open. I told him what the colon doctor said and he seemed to think in light of my graft being "wide open" I'd be ok to have the procedure and stop the Plavix as long as I could still take the aspirin. I'm on aspirin, Plavix and Warfarin.
I decided to chance it and had the colonoscopy on March 1st. I planned on starting Plavix back on saturday the next day, got up and all was fine until about 10:30...pain hit my leg. It hurt bad and my foot turned pale and my big toe felt like someone had hit it with a baseball bat. I managed to find some left over Oxycodone in the cabinet and took one. Abut 20 minutes later it was better but I called paramedics to come out anyway. I told them what was going on and they took me to the emergency room where I spent some five hours. They gave my another ultrasound and the radiologist found no blood clots but the graft in my lef was clotting up. The gave me a shot of Lovenox and sent me home to notify my vascular doc on Monday.
I called him Monday, told him what was going on and he told me to come over. After accessing my foot he gave me a prescription for Oxycodone twice as strong as what I had at home and set up a surgery for that Wednesday. Meanwhile I'm popping Oxycodone every 3-4 hours when the pain in my big toe would come back. It just wasn't getting enough blood. I had one hell of a time sleeping Monday and Tuesday.
Day of the surgery, Wednesday at 1:00 I told them no catheters because they hurt and I couldn't pee afterwards. They apparently didn't hear me and did it anyway but took it out before I woke up some 4-5 hours later. He worked on me, according to his nurse, some 4 1/2 hours. I felt groggy and incoherent and felt I could pee over the moon but couldn't I knew they had put that catheter in me at that point. Finally, I was able to pee about an ounce and it felt like someone jerking barbed wire out of me. I was sweating bullets and it went on like that the rest of the day and night. Finally about 3:00am I got mad and tried to pee again and twisted the wrong way. Suddenly, I felt someone warm running down my but and leg and thought I had spilled the container I had to pee in. It was blood spurting everywhere. I panicked and couldn't find the nurses call button so hollered out loud I was bleeding to death. Two of them came in and one put so much pressure on the would I thought I'd die-especially having to pee so bad anyway. They stopped it thankfully.
Trying to end this, I'll never have another colonoscopy. I can't afford to. It jeopardized my foot and leg comping off the blood thinners so next time they want me to have one to them I just say, good luck. No one should go through that sort of thing. The two polyps found were not cancerous and if they want me to have another in 4-5 years fine but no more coming off Plavix...for any reason.
So, if you didn't have anything to do on this Friday night and you thought you had a rough week, read this again.
