Colonoscopy

I met with the gastrointestinal doc last week. He was so nice and excited to talk about my colon. He showed me the CT images and explained why my small intestine looked concerning. His next step suggestion: colonoscopy. Oh yeah.

The majority of the immune system is housed in our guts. The immune system is delicate and can easily become inflamed when something isn’t quite right. We need to find out if the inflammation that is seen on the CT scan is caused by the immunotherapy drugs. If the immunotherapy drugs are causing the inflamation we need to treat the inflammation with steroids so that my immune system doesn’t start attacking itself to heal.

They want to take some biopsy samples from the point at which the small and large intestine meet. This area is often a point of inflammation or infection. If the biopsy reveals there is inflammation in the immune cells that live in my intestine then I will need to hold treatment and do a course of steroids to reduce inflammation and heal my gut. I am pretty nervous about withholding treatment and going on steroids. I hope we find no inflamed immune cells and that I can just keep dealing with the daily GI issues I have without the need to stop treatment. Really neither option is a great option, but dealing with what my new normal is seems much better than putting a pause on treatment.

The colonoscopy is happening tomorrow (Wednesday). Biopsy results should be back no later than early next. Will keep you updated on what we find out!