Dysplasia and Disinformation
Okay, I think I feel a little more comfortable now discussing the vague "health issues" stuff from a previous post. Last fall I had a colonoscopy and my doctor kind of led me to believe I was teetering on the edge of having cancer.
A few months later I had another appointment in preparation for a follow-up scoping, and he explained things a little more. Apparently I had something called dysplasia, which is the beginning of cells mutating into cancer. There's high-grade dysplasia, and low-grade dysplasia. For months I was convinced I had the high-grade kind, thinking it was just a matter of time. But he finally explained that it was "indefinite" dysplasia, so I guess it wasn't totally confirmed that the mutations were going on.
His philosophy is to treat everything that has the potential to be cancer as seriously as possible, which makes sense. But in retrospect I felt a little misled. He had me try some more intense treatments intended to reduce the inflammation in the gut that can lead to cancer. But these treatments (called biologics) can be thousands of dollars per dose ($7,000 for one IV infusion I had, for example), and the two new drugs he had me try gave me serious skin reactions. In the end, after a couple months of financial worry and additional doctor visits about side effects, we went back on the treatment I had been on for the last ten years. It was pretty frustrating in a variety of ways.
So yesterday I had the follow-up colonoscopy, and the doctor saw nothing visually to be concerned about. The labs will come back in about a week to give more info on the potential dysplasia or whatever. I have felt somewhat better about the situation, although I am presumably at elevated risk of developing colon cancer at some point. But with frequent examinations nothing should go unnoticed for long.
**Update** The pathology came back negative, so there's no sign of dysplasia. Woo hoo!
A few months later I had another appointment in preparation for a follow-up scoping, and he explained things a little more. Apparently I had something called dysplasia, which is the beginning of cells mutating into cancer. There's high-grade dysplasia, and low-grade dysplasia. For months I was convinced I had the high-grade kind, thinking it was just a matter of time. But he finally explained that it was "indefinite" dysplasia, so I guess it wasn't totally confirmed that the mutations were going on.
His philosophy is to treat everything that has the potential to be cancer as seriously as possible, which makes sense. But in retrospect I felt a little misled. He had me try some more intense treatments intended to reduce the inflammation in the gut that can lead to cancer. But these treatments (called biologics) can be thousands of dollars per dose ($7,000 for one IV infusion I had, for example), and the two new drugs he had me try gave me serious skin reactions. In the end, after a couple months of financial worry and additional doctor visits about side effects, we went back on the treatment I had been on for the last ten years. It was pretty frustrating in a variety of ways.
So yesterday I had the follow-up colonoscopy, and the doctor saw nothing visually to be concerned about. The labs will come back in about a week to give more info on the potential dysplasia or whatever. I have felt somewhat better about the situation, although I am presumably at elevated risk of developing colon cancer at some point. But with frequent examinations nothing should go unnoticed for long.
**Update** The pathology came back negative, so there's no sign of dysplasia. Woo hoo!
Comments