Finally at 11 am, a transporter comes and wheels my bed into the hallway to attach to a machine that will help him transport me to the operating room. After a few minutes of fiddling around, it becomes clear that my bed will not support the machine. He calls someone up and tells them it will need to be pushed manually which requires two people. Never mind that there are, like, 5 other empty beds in the three closest rooms that I could switch to. So now I have to wait for two people to be free, which takes another 20 minutes.
I'm brought to a prep room where I strip down and wait for what feels like an hour. I'm wheeled into the operating room, anesthesia is administered, and I don't know anything more until a little after 2 pm when I wake up while spitting up as a nurse removes my breathing tube. She uses some kind of suction tube to help clear out my spit up. Apparently this happens a lot, especially if you've had an upper GI endoscopy. I keep coughing and more phlegm is coming up. I can barely talk but that doesn't stop me, in my drugged state, of asking for the suction tube so I can play with - I mean, clean up after myself.
After she gives me that, she does an evaluation of me. The French, especially those in the medical field, have this annoying habit of saying "Oop" whenever they do something or touch you. When you're not used to it, it gets real annoying real fast. I wish I had kept a count of how many times a day I heard it, because it was probably at least 20. Usually, I just smile and ignore it but apparently in my drugged state I am less tolerant. Every time she "Oop"ed, I "Oop"ed too. In between "Oop"ing, I pointed to random things in the room and asked how to say them in French. She answers me the first couple times but once she is done her evaluation, the last bit of which was mysteriously "Oop" free, she leaves and I am ignored. I eventually dropped the suction tube and my poor brain couldn't grasp the concept that I just needed to tell my hand to grab it, so I just sat there and whimpered at my loss.
Eventually someone else post-procedure got wheeled in. I waved, even though she was unconscious, and the nurse promptly set a curtain barrier between us. But this let me see who was originally behind the curtain so I waved at him instead. He wiggled his foot and a paper from his bed fell on the floor. For some reason I was very troubled by this and cried, "Ooooh nooooooo!" It was at this moment the nurse decided I had recovered enough and called someone to wheel me back to my room where I spent the next couple hours winding down alone, though I still felt drugged well into the night.
I wanted to use the bathroom but the hand IV was still in. If you're not familiar with an IV placed in the hand, it's very annoying and hurts more than the kind placed on the inside of the elbow. Typically, extra IV line is gathered and taped to your hand as well which makes the needle move around less and allows slightly more comfort. This luxury was not performed for me, so I opted to wait until they removed the IV line to go to the bathroom. I didn't really need to go, it's just that except for a robe draped over me, I was still undressed and I wanted to put some clothes on. The doctor said they keep it in for 4 hours after anesthesia in case of emergency. It was finally removed and I went to go to the bathroom. The next paragraph is graphic and honestly a little embarrassing, but I think it's important to share as an important view of French healthcare. Skip the next paragraph if you'd like.
I get up and notice that they had left me in the mess they created during the colonoscopy. I had thought something felt off but honestly I was so drugged up I couldn't make a good connection. I had received a colonoscopy in the US about 5 years ago and they clean you squeaky clean afterwards. It wasn't until now that I even knew that the nurses in the US did that for me. So here I am, laying in my own waste for 4 hours and it is not contained to just one area. It's all over the lower body and they leave it to the drugged up, uncoordinated patient to clean up in their bathroom sink (there are no showers in the hospital room) with anything they have on hand once they are coherent enough to understand something is amiss. Luckily I had saved my washcloth they had given me that morning. This was disgusting and I am outraged that such a thing happened. I am actually currently fighting off a minor urinary tract infection because of it. I wonder if they do the same for elderly patients who have a hard time cleaning themselves on a normal day?
The next day the doctor comes in to tell me results. The inflammation and ulcers are confined to the colon, specifically the descending colon and rectum, which indicates ulcerative colitis over Crohn's. The histopathology, however, came back as indefinitive. The samples of the inflamed, ulcerous areas came back as neither Crohn's or ulcerative colitis, but as undefined inflammation. What does this mean? Who knows! The doctor still thinks it is ulcerative colitis, just caught early on. The symptoms are right, it looks like it, so it will be treated as such. I was sent home with a long prescription list and orders of blood work in 2 weeks and every month after for 3 months, and an MRI and check-up in late July.
Even though the food was horrible and I am very upset over the state they left me in after the colonoscopy, I am very grateful it happened here in France, where a 9 day hospital stay won't have me in debt for the rest of my life like it would in the US. I'm sure it'll still cost a pretty penny, but nothing like the US. This reminds me to ask you to please shop amazon through our affiliate link in the Support Us page. It costs you nothing extra, but gives us a small commission. Thank you!