What’s it like after the colonoscopy, how do you feel?

Slightly woozy obviously because you know the effects [of the sedative] will last several hours. I wasn’t too bad. What they do, they wheel you onto, on your trolley into a little side ward and it’s what you might call a recovery ward and you’re allowed to stay there really for an hour or so or as long as you wish until you feel able to get up and walk really. So you’re not rushed, you know, they look after you quite well.

Did you feel you had any side effects at all after the colonoscopy?

No, I didn’t no, fortunately none whatsoever no, I was perfectly okay. I was able to go the loo, no problem the next day, and I had no discomfort. No it was, for me it was problem free.

Yeah and they put me back out you know in the hall, you know what I mean, I was just lay there on the bed.

They took you into the waiting area?

Yes, for about an hour and then they give me a cup of tea and a sandwich, yes. Oh they was ever so nice, honestly.

Did you have any side effects of the colonoscopy?

No, no, no none whatsoever.

Oh that’s good.

And how did you get home from the colonoscopy, after the colonoscopy how did you get home?

Do you mean from the hospital?

Yes.

Oh the ambulance, the ambulance, ambulance took me home.

Oh good so there was no problem with that?

No.

After the colonoscopy, did you have any side effects?

None whatsoever. Oh, no. That’s not strictly true. When I was lying on the bed for this hour that they’d told me to do, they put like a peg, the thing they put on the end of your finger, which checks on your blood oxygen level I think, and that went off a couple of times, and the nurse came straight over and said, ‘Just take some deep breaths’, which I did. And that was it, after two or three times they took the peg off, and she said, ‘Are you feeling fine?’, ‘Yes’, and then I was allowed to go home.

No real discomfort?

None whatsoever. I didn’t drive for the following 24 hours but I had no side effects. I began to eat normally, thankfully, and no effect. I mean I thought that perhaps the next day I’d feel sore around the bottom, you know, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel any reaction at all.

How long did you feel you should take off work?

I took the following day off.

Was there any bleeding or anything afterwards?

A very, very, very small amount. The, after I’d eaten, I had some egg and bacon and I sat down, played, listening to the radio and I felt hungry again, so my wife did me some boiled eggs and ham sandwiches. So I ate, I ate those and I was drinking tea all the time and you know water, tea all the time, I was drinking water and tea all the while and I felt fine. But when I did my first stool at the toilet there was just a small trace, which they told me there would be, you know. But they said if it was too much to get back in touch with them right way. But there was no problem, it cleared up almost immediately.

Did you have any side effects of the colonoscopy?

No funnily enough I didn’t at all and I was quite surprised when the nurses rang me two days after to ask me was I you know in good shape after having it. And no I don’t remember any bad feelings or ill feelings or anything.

Did you have any bleeding at all?

No, no I didn’t no funnily enough I, I was expecting to be very sore round my back passage but I wasn’t.

You wanted to say something else?

Yes just one thing the nurses who test you and advise you that you need to go for a colonoscopy are very, very pleasant and they’re very knowledgeable. They don’t hide anything and they tell you exactly what is going to happen to you and I was so shocked when they rang me up after the colonoscopy to ask if I was okay, which is something I’ve never experienced before. And I think it’s very nice that people are caring and do follow you up.

And then afterwards, how did you feel afterwards?

Afterwards I, I, the only sign of pain that I had afterwards, and which they told me about that I would possibly get some wind afterwards, bad wind, because when they put the camera in it can’t be helped, theres so much wind when they’re putting it through you, you know your system, you get air locks. And after they’d finished I must admit when I, I laid on the bed and I, it was just like a bad stomach wind pain which was what I had probably for about I don’t know 45 minutes afterwards and as you go to the toilet to try and get rid of the, disperse this wind it gets easier and easier, the more wind you express obviously. But that was the only sign of; not pain, discomfort that I had you know but everything was fine.

You said you had some side effects after the colonoscopy can you tell me about those?

I’m assuming it’s to do with the colonoscopy because the nurse actually phoned me up on, the next day I think it was and asked me how I was feeling and I had some violent pains at the base of my stomach, or perhaps the colon area and it was, there was a lot of wind, there was a hell of a lot of wind and I assume, they had told me beforehand that, because they pump some air into you I think to open the bowel up and I can only assume that I hadn’t passed it. About the Wednesday after, I mean I’ve not told the hospital this but I then [laughs] had the effects of the, it felt like the effects of the laxative because my, I was in and out of the toilet for two days and I’m wondering whether I still had some inside me but I don’t know how. That was just my own thoughts but that as the only after effect I had.

So you had even more diarrhoea for a while afterwards.

Yeah afterwards, straight afterwards I was alright, I, I was back to normal basically for a couple of days and then I had these, I woke in the middle, early hours of the morning and I had really, my stomach was hurting and I had, there was a lot of wind, there was, and it hurt. And for a few days my back passage felt slightly sore, it was, it’s obvious something had happened in that area but after a couple of days that all wore off, I never went to the doctors. If it had lasted a bit longer I might have done but I just assumed it was an after effect.

And what other side effects did you have?

Well after the colonoscopy I came home and we had a meal and I must be honest I had the desperate desire for fish and chips and we stopped in and collected some fish and chips, which we don’t normally eat, had the meal and about two hours afterwards I began to develop this sense of extreme cold and uncontrollable shaking and with that uncontrollable shaking I had terrible headaches. My wife put me to bed with a hot water bottle, wrapped up in my pyjamas and a dressing gown in bed with the electric blanket on, and I fell asleep round about 9 o clock in the evening, which for me is extraordinarily early, as I normally go to bed about 1 to half past in the morning. I slept in until about 8.30 the next day, and I was up and around as normal but I had this terrible sensation that my bladder was very badly bruised, almost as if it had been kicked around a football field for a day and I had cramping problems in the stomach which I expected because of the air that had passed into the stomach through the procedure. The sensation of the bruising of the bladder and the cramping pains persisted for three to four days afterwards, before they stabilised and became normal again.

Please can you tell me, how long did you have to take off work for the colonoscopy?

Well I had approximately a week actually. Possibly most people wouldn’t possibly need that much but with my job as a bus driver I need to be alert and the diet is quite severe actually and the thing is that you need energy and I mean driving buses is not a manual job as such but you do need the strength of your food to keep you alert. And obviously I found it, myself, wise to take the week off because the diet itself is a three day thing, and also you need to recover at least a day after the procedure with sedation. So I think a week really for most people is probably the ideal.