These are the days of miracle and wonder, this is a long-distance call

I think I’m in a story-telling mood at the moment, but my GP’s reaction to my visit this morning was quite extraordinary, and I suppose it made me wonder whether other people had experienced similar things.

At the risk of over-sharing (always a danger in these parts), I went this morning to get a referral for a colonoscopy. This was not motivated by any particular urging, other than a genetic history that suggests that now is a time in my life when these things should start happening.

To explain, my mother had bowel cancer when a smidgeon younger than me, and her uncle also died after complications with bowel cancer (in actual fact, he died on the operating table, but he wouldn’t have been on the operating table had they not been trying to remedy the cancer).

Anyway, so my doctor asked me how old Mum was when she had been diagnosed. “Oooh, I don’t know – let me see, 28 or 29?”

He stopped typing into his whiz-bang referral data form and turned to me. “Gee – that’s young. This was in the early 80s? How on earth did they pick it up?”

Without thinking about it, I blurted “Well, they didn’t, at first.”

* quizzical look from GP *

You see, when my mother went to a GP, complaining of symptoms that might have been bowel cancer (but which, it should be noted, might also have been something else), she was duly sent on to a specialist. The specialist consulted with her and took her medical history. My sister had, at this stage, recently started school, and my mother had also had a miscarriage 12 months previously. Having undertaken no further tests, the specialist dismissed her.

“You’re depressed,” he opined. “Just go home and have another baby”

So my mother went home and reflected. She was pretty sure that she didn’t actually want another baby, observed that perhaps she was a bit lonely, but that she still had symptoms that she could not explain.

Then she burst into tears and called a friend to talk through what had happened. And this is where my mother’s slight tendency to over-reaction saved her life.

Her friend, let’s call her Beryl, who conveniently was a medical scientist, suggested she go back to the original GP and get a referral to a Melbourne specialist that Beryl knew.

A couple of weeks later, the diagnosis was proposed and confirmed. My mother had bowel cancer. She was put in hospital while they decided what to do with her. At this stage, re-sections (removing the cancerous part of the bowel and joining up the remaining pieces) were at best experimental, and the outlook for survival was pretty grim.

Her condition deteriorated, she kept losing weight and her Melbourne specialist grew concerned. She was flown to Melbourne, pending a further decision. My sister and I stayed with our dad, and after he arranged for us to move in with our grandmother, we went with her.

Perversely, for my part, this was a fun time. We went to the (old) museum almost every day, because mum's hospital was right next door. We saw our first ever movie in the cinema (The Neverending Story). We were staying with my grandmother, who we adored.

What was going on in the background though, was very serious. My mother’s specialist told her that she had two choices: try a re-section, and possibly die. One of the possible side-effects of the surgery was a colostomy bag. Or on the other hand, she could just get sicker and sicker, and probably still die.

Mum’s next response was, in retrospect, a little bonkers. My mother was firm with her doctor, with my father, and basically anyone else who would listen.

“I would rather die than have a colostomy bag. I mean it, I would rather die”

Luckily, that choice was out of her hands: they were unlikely to euthanise her because she didn’t like having her poo collected in a plastic receptacle. If she decided to have the surgery, she’d have to live with the outcomes, assuming that she did in fact live.

So in the next week, my mum became one of the first people in Australia to have a successful, extensive bowel re-section. When she woke up from the anaesthetic, the first thing she did was to sweep her hands along the sides of her body to check for a colostomy bag. Twas nothing to be found.

At that point, dietitians were still trying to figure out what to do with people with significantly less bowel, so they had mum on a diet of apple juice for the best part of a week. “I wouldn’t mind,” she says now, “Except they brought it under one of those silver plate warmers, so it always seemed like a cruel joke when they lifted it off with a flourish and there was just a glass of apple juice standing there”.

Her recovery was long, she remained the wrong side of emaciated for some time, can’t stand apple juice, and she has a massive blue scar the likes of which is rarely seen.

I am pleased to say that since my mum’s surgery, recovery rates for bowel cancer have improved dramatically. But still, two of my friends have lost their fathers to bowel cancer.

So while this post is a celebration of my own mother’s luck and tenacity (and the great fortune to have the kind of cancer that can be cut out and promptly forgotten, just like a celebrity marriage), it is also a tribute to the bravery of my friends’ parents and the bravery of their families.

I am lucky every day to have my mum, even if she sometimes drives me mad. And I’m determined to spend as long as I can driving Grizzlewick mad too.

Prevention is better than cure, that’s why I’m off for a good old probing.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my mum, it’s that nothing: not colonoscopies, not even a colostomy bag, is too high a price to pay for seeing your kids grow up.

Update: This story was supposed to be about my mum and her stupid specialist, but for some reason it's turned out to be about me. Thanks to those of you who have contacted me in concern (you know who you are) but if you ever needed any more proof that I was a story-slut then surely it's the fact that I have turned a completely pedestrian doctor's visit into blog fodder. Yes, my life is really that boring.