Somehow I didn't think that this would be easy. The decision to offer a kidney to my brother was easy I thought but, as a pretty fit person all my life, I was not ready for what has occurred almost concurrently:
I passed 60 quite recently, and as a result was invited to participate in a bowel cancer screening programme. My first samples (I won't go into details!) were rated as "unclear" so they asked me to do another set which were "normal" but, just to be sure, I was asked to do a third set of samples. This came back last week as "abnormal", together with an invitation to attend a meeting at my local hospital. This meeting was yesterday (they don't hang around!) and I am now booked in for a colonoscopy on Thursday next week (that sounds like a bundle of laughs).
It turned out that my sample results actually were encouragingly low: on the first set, only one out of six showed any symptoms, and it was the same on the third set. Thus I have reached this situation on the least possible amount of positive results, i.e. just two out of eighteen. Apparently 2% of people on this routine screening get an abnormal result: five of every ten who have a colonoscopy have no further issue; four of every ten have some other cause like piles or polyps, and just one in ten actually has bowel cancer. Immediately after the colonoscopy you are told if they have taken any samples for biopsy - if not you are clear. Biopsy results are available within a week, so either way I will know the results within twenty three days of getting the original letter, which is pretty good I think. We are all too readily critical of the NHS, in my view.
In the meantime, I have already spoken to the transplant nurse and explained the situation. She will progress the question of tissue samples with my local hospital and then we await the outcome of the colonoscopy. If I'm OK, I can then get back on this road to becoming a live transplant donor, which should then be a bit less rocky!
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