The mild symptoms became more regular, and eventually the day came when my bowel became blocked by an obstruction which resulted in a significant medical problem.
I remember my first episode of large bowel obstruction very well as it happened just today. I recall that I was staying in Holland with Rachel at the time. The diet in Holland is very high in bread, beer and gluten. Perhaps as a result of this after a week in Amsterdam my stomach became distended and I became constipated. After perhaps 48 hours of this, I began to have abdominal pain and colic. For anyone who doesn’t know, colic is abdominal pain due to strong painful contractions within the bowel. The pain comes intermittently in waves which may last a minute or two. It then slowly dissipates only to return a few minutes later.
Along with these symptoms, I also lost my appetite and eventually began to vomit. These are the symptoms of an obstructed bowel. This is a serious condition and the medical advice would be to immediately seek medical treatment at a hospital. I thought that the most likely cause of my problem was diverticulitis, for which the initial treatment is antibiotics. Fortunately, I had some antibiotics with me and had taken these when the first symptoms presented. As a result, the colic and vomiting settled down quickly over one night.
The symptoms became severe
I realised that my symptoms were now severe and immediately telephoned an old colleague of mine DV. DV was a radiologist who specialised in investigating bowel problems. He was able to arrange for an appointment later that same day for a CT scan of my stomach. Immediately after the scan I reviewed the pictures with the radiographer: the technician. On looking at the films on the screen, I could clearly see an obstruction in the lower sigmoid bowel. Proximal to this obstruction was a dilated and overloaded large bowel.
I was lucky as the next day DV formally reported on the investigation. He confirmed that there was an obstruction in the sigmoid colon part of the large bowel, with a chronic (long term) obstruction which had resulted in the more proximal large bowel becomming distended and thickened. He could not be certain, but could not see any suggestion of an underlying cancer, mass or lump causing the obstruction. Much later, he confessed to me that based on his experience he suspected there was an underlying cancer but there was no definite evidence within the examination.
