Confession of Arrogants

This is a confession of an Arrogant Engineer.

I may not be posting much more to my Electronics Blog for a while. Although, I will still be thinking of electronic projects and software solutions for interesting problems. But, . . . most of my attentions will be elsewhere.

For the last few weeks (months) I have been feeling weak, it was getting difficult to climb the 32 steps to my Loft Apartment. I am 68, and I was just thinking I am getting older. But then, when going down the stairs was getting difficult, I decided something was wrong and decided it was time to see my Doctor again.

After some blood test, they found low-red-cell-count and low-Iron. Iron is necessary to make more NEW red blood cells. The Doctor suspected I was leaking blood into my intestines and iron was being depleted trying to replace lost blood. Note: Normally it takes about 90 days to replace your own blood.

My Arrogance

Two years ago, I ignored my Doctors advice to get a Colonoscopy. For those that do not know, the Colon is the name for the entire Large Intestine.

A colonoscopy is the process of viewing the colon from the inside. It sounds terrible, but completely painless with drugs. Unfortunately, there is several days of prep which requires you to drink some awful tasting clear liquid the last two days.

To make a long story short; Last Monday my colonoscopy found a "growth" within my Colon that is leaking blood. Even without the pathology test, it is suspect to be Cancer. The good news is it appears to be only associated with one short section of my colon, maybe 6 inches. Hopefully, a resection of my colon will remove it all. I have appointments later this week for review and surgery planning.

If my problem would have been found earlier, it would have been a simple in-office procedure to remove a polyp or two. That was done from another location during my current colonoscopy.

My advice, Hobbyist-to-Hobbyist, Engineer-to-Engineer;

Get a Colonoscopy as soon as your Doctor recommends.

This is my New Blog to posts my colon adventures, I know it will not be as interesting as Ham Radio and Electronic Projects, but it is what I can do to encourage others to follow Doctors orders. And of course, as usual, I will try to provide clinical photos and details.

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