MY BRAVE AND INDEPENDANT MUM

Picture of my mum taken on Saturday - looking much better
Eating porridge at a hawker centre, no hot and spicy food for two months

Without informing any of her daughters, my mum went to Fatimah Hospital to have a scope done on her intestines on Friday morning. My mum hadn't been well for a few weeks and had completely lost her appetite. Her specialist had advised her to go for a gastrointestinal endoscopy to see what was really wrong but she had delayed having it done.

But I guess all the discomfort that she had suffered made her decide to get it done. When I picked up my aunt from her home on Friday evening, she was the one to tell me that my mum had undergone the procedure.

My mum later told the both of us that she had called her doctor's office early in the morning and got the nurse to make an appointment with her doctor. Then she took a taxi to the hospital, went and made the booking for the operation theatre and then waited for her doctor to come. She said that the procedure was painless and afterwards she got a video of it. After all was over, she called for a taxi and went home to rest until my aunt and I reached home.

The both of us made sure that she ate bland food as she had just had therapeutic endoscopy.

Here is some information about endoscopy and therapeutic endoscopy:

What is endoscopy?

The word "endoscopy" means to "look inside." Endoscopy is a diagnostic test designed to look at the lining of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, including the:

• esophagus--the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach
• stomach--where food is stored immediately after a meal
• small intestine--where food is digested
• large intestine--where waste is processed
  

The test is performed with a special instrument called an endoscope, or just 'scope' for short. It is a long thin hollow tube with a bright light and highly specialized camera at the end. The tiny camera allows the doctor to see images of your digestive system on a TV screen.

Therapeutic endoscopy means performing a treatment inside the intestine using special instruments that go through the scope. First, a diagnostic endoscopy is done, as described above. If a problem that is treatable through the scope is identified, the doctor may be able to treat the problem at that time. Most of the time, the doctor will know before the procedure starts that therapeutic endoscopy may be necessary and will inform you. Examples of treatment that might be necessary are removing a polyp or cauterizing a bleeding site.

Source: http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/info/abdomen/procedure/gi-endoscopy.htm

By the way, the doctor found that there was some bruising and he did the necessary repair work. The good news was that it was not cancerous and that she will be fine after the treatment. Yahoo! Thank the Gods for it.