# Sigmoidoscopy Story



## chrisos (May 5, 2003)

Well...yesterday was the probe. And before I say a word can I just say this. The NHS is a disgrace. I am committed to the ideal of socialism, but if free at the point of delivery means ****ing minging, dirty, horrible little facilities, I will gladly topslice my tax to get a real service.We arrived at the Southern General in plenty of time. Half of this hospital is state of the art, brand new...the other is pokey and rank. We have the flagship trauma centre and surgical block. We have the world famous neuroscience, neurosurgery, and neurology block, and the Scottish National Spinal Injuries Unit. In the very corner of the hospital lies a pokey wee 50s prefab building that looks like a deserted hospital in a TV film about a country deseted after a nuclear attack. it says "Chest and GI Centre" on it. It is not the image I had in mind.The receptionist asked if I wanted sedation before inviting us to sit in rigid chairs placed round small tables. There are no magazines. In the background is a fish tank, with pretty fish within. It badly need cleaning out. I need the toilet (surprise given the Picolax etc), and found a smelly place of one toilet and one urinal. There was rough as **** NHS bogroll (painful) and very little soap.On returning to the main room...I noticed a walled off area, a bit like a cubicle office in a call centre or local DSS. The thin walls went about 2/3rd of the way up the height of the room, and there was a manky brown veneer door.After 10 minutes, a charge nurse came up, assessed me and called me through into the "stockade". My "bed" was pointed out. The first words were "can you make it up onto that trolley if we give you a step?" Not a good sign. I was asked to strip from the waist down but "you can keep your top on"....and to "wear the robe that does up the back"Well....I undressed. The "robe that does up the back" was a many times recycled, very small robe with arms. I got up onto my "bed". This was actually a trolley. Well...actually a plank. No joking, I was wider than the thing. It was 4 feet off the ground. The wheels were loose. I felt like Dick Dastardly in the wacky races, going over the top of some wee car. I couldn't lean back cause the trolley moved. I was sat there nearly an hour, watching my gf sitting in the waiting room, through the net curtains of the "stockade". And then I needed to pee. So I got a bottle. But couldn't pee sitting down.....so I had to manouvere myself...then stand up jumping off the rickety trolley and landing on the floor with an arse that had gone to sleep from sitting on the thin mattress in one position for too long.Finally, I got taken in, and I couldn't get my legs up high enough without overbalancing the bloody trolley. i felt like Shamu in drydock.The procedure itself was ok. I got to watch it all on the video screen, and the consultant gave me anatomical commentary, and took biopsies (I never felt a thing). The procedure was a bit uncomfortable, but not half as bad as a bad gassy IBS evening, and it lasted only a wee bit. There was, imho, absolutely no need for sedation, and I think it would have been a much bigger deal if i'd had to wait hours andturn it into a big op.It turns out I saw her when she worked in Aberdeen, as a junior doctor, so we talked a bit about that too. It was all over very quickly. No tumours or other pathologies were there, and no little green men waved at the screen. So the big news..its IBS...wow, news there







The nursing staff were very helpful even if the setting wasn't ideal. The experience was a little uncomfortable, but easily bearable. And I feel much reassured.


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## boxgirl73 (Jul 5, 2002)

Well, you certainly made me laugh-the way you told your story was so funny for such a miserable situation! Hey, you got thru it and even without any polyps, etc! Congrats


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## Shadowz (Feb 26, 2003)

this email is just so funny really put a smile to my face . The NHS is great eh ? Im glad you are taking it all with a smile and glad its over with for you


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