Hello everyone.
Can I please direct your attention to the linked Just Giving fundraiser? Not much more to be said – I’m frankly in awe of Deborah James and her colleagues on the Big C podcast.
Thanks.
Bowelbabe – Just Giving
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Almost forgot: ——>
little white tick on a green circle
Cheers, Foxy…
Just passed the £6M mark.
Which just goes to show, there is the public will to fund this kind of thing. If Number 10 happen to be reading this…
As a guts-related aside, the Crohn’s & Colitis UK charity did a large-scale clinical study recently. They found there are twice as many sufferers of C&C as previously thought – 1 in 123 people, or 550,000 in the UK. Research budget is still approximately F.A. though.
I guess part of the problem with diagnosing all bowel issues is encouraging people to overcome their (natural) embarrassment and seek help – something that Deborah James has worked to remedy (ie, a bit of embarrassment to overcome versus saving your life). She made a point of ensuring that “check your poo” was the last thing she said on her final podcast…
Yes. I think I’d like to have “Check your poo.” carved on my gravestone. It would be more useful than “He was very dull.”
I’ll bump this one more time then stop – don’t want to irritate anyone…
Also, many thanks to Ainsley the Admin for his help yesterday evening.
FWIW I stuck it on LinkedIn yesterday…. and also I’m bumping it with this otherwise pointless comment.
Cheers, Moose…
Gah! Another dump in the fog of waking up this morning, another opportunity to check my poo missed. Being of a certain vintage means the nice people at the NHS send me a box of testing gear every couple of years. I must get some aerosols and spray CHECK YOUR SHIT! on the bathroom wall so I remember to open the little box of spatula thingys before I settle down with my recently arrived copy of Ucnut for a pore over the re-issues pages while nature takes its course. This month has already cost me a Nancy & Lee album reissue and the splendid new retrospective from Iain Matthews. I hope this musical side-tracking won’t continue to deflect me from CHECKING MY POO.
There. That’s bumped the thread up again.
Are they the little pots about two inches long with the blue tops? There’s a little spatula-type thing in the lid but I never know quite what to do with it – I’ve never really been told. I just hold the pot open end up and take aim. I’ve had a lot of practice over the last decade or so…
The nurse always looks happy when I say “I’ve brought a little present for you”. She doesn’t look so happy once I hand it over.
One of my friends works in the local hospital path lab. He pointed out that the public tend to adopt a “fill your boots, we’ve got plenty” attitude to providing stool samples…all the lab staff generally need is a small sample, preferably scooped up with the little blue spatula.
A wide-ranging forum, indeed…
Edith: just had a look on the Just Giving site – now up to £6.28M, from a target of £250k…
I had to redo my last sample as the first got lost in the double Bank Holiday four-day-weekend post.
Wait until that gets to the dead letter office, and postie attempts to “return to sender”.
He also told me about an “exploding” sample, which resulted in him needing a decontamination shower – I thought it might be apocryphal but he insisted that it happened to him while working in a Liverpool hospital…
Are you sure he didn’t just say he was working with a shower of shit? I know that feeling
The Afterword – talking shit since whenever.
Wowser, that’s terrific. And another million plus to add through Gift Aid!
What’s more this post has bumped the thread up yet again!!
I find myself in the slightly strange position of reading this whilst sitting in a ward at Manchester Royal Infirmary having had my bowel removed last week due to a growth. It came on so suddenly, maybe. 3 weeks from, “Hmm, don’t feel so good” to, “We’ve just cut your cancerous bowel out. Histology reports awaited on the rest of me.
My tuppence worth? Get help as soon as you have any worries. The whole thing is actually much less scary than you think it’s going to be.
Blimey Paul, good luck.
Thanks very much.
Seconded, Paul.
It might have an impact on the day-to-day but you’ll soon enough adapt and/or get used to it. And it provides a handy excuse to get out of things I didn’t want to go to in the first place.
And thirded, Paul – all the best for an uneventful and successful recovery.
And fourthded. A very good chum of mine had the bowel removal op due to cancer about 12 years ago and is now as sprightly as ever was. And he’s from Kirkby.
Thanks very much to all of you – genuinely very much appreciated.
Honestly my key point was that you do find strength from somewhere, and the thought of being told you’re I’ll is much worse than the reality. And I really didn’t post to get lots of positive affirmations back – but thanks v v much anyway!
Good luck Paul – I had colorectal cancer some years back and had bowel resectioning. It was challenge to say the least, but as you say, its amazing how fast your body and mind can adapt and cope! And yes – the single worst moment of the whole experience was being told for the first time. It slowly gets better from there
Thanks very much. The finest people on the internet frequent this place. You’re all very kind.
Today is World IBD Day. Let’s talk crap.
https://crohnsandcolitis.org.uk/get-involved/world-ibd-day-2022