Hi everyone. I am new to the group and have joined because I am feeling anxious about all that has happened to me in the last week.
Last Saturday I woke to find that I had blood on my toilet tissue after passing urine. This continued throughout the day and as I am on blood thinners I thought that I would get it checked out. ( I am 8 years post menopausal).
I rang NHS 111 and after a long chat with a lovely advisor, I was told that I would need a nurse assessment by telephone.
I received this telephone call on Sunday morning and during the assessment, by a very helpful nurse, I was told that I would need a telephone consultation with an out of hours GP. This telephone call came an hour later and I was assessed by an extremely patient and helpful Dr. She told me that unless my symptoms worsened she didn't need to see me but that I definitely needed a face to face appointment with my Dr the following day.
Monday morning I rang the surgery and was lucky to get a face to face appointment with a fantastic GP. He read the detailed notes that had been forwarded from the out of hours GP and after a few further questions he proceeded to do two internal examinations. After he had finished he informed me that he would be referring me on as an urgent case for an ultrasound scan, a vaginal investigation and a gynaecology appointment and that he hoped that the procedures would all take place within a two to three week timescale.
On Tuesday morning I received a telephone call inviting me to the gynaecology unit at my local hospital the following day, where I was to undergo an ultrasound and possibly the vaginal investigation as well.
On Wednesday I arrived for the procedures and had the ultrasound followed by the vaginal investigation and was told that they thought that I had a polyp and that I would have to have a hysteroscopy to do further investigation. I was given an appointment for the following morning.
On Thursday I underwent the hysteroscopy, which confirmed that I had a large polyp, that had been too large to remove but that a biopsy had been taken from it to send for analysis. The gynaecologist that I saw told me that it would be sent for analysis straightaway and would be marked as urgent and that the results could take up to 2 weeks to come back. She then went through various options of what may need to follow next.
I am extremely grateful that all of this has happened so quickly but now that I have had time to think about things properly my thought process is switching between " I need to stay calm and relaxed whilst waiting for the results" and "oh my goodness why has this all happened so fast, should I be prepared for the worse".
I have read through a few posts from other people who have been through or are going through similar at present and that has helped put my thoughts a bit more into perspective but I think I just needed to share my thoughts in writing to relive a bit of my anxiety.
Hi Scarlet
Welcome to the Womb group.
Goodness, you have had an eventful week!
Just to reassure you that everything that you did, by seeking medical advice was the right thing to do. With any post menopausal bleeding it is normal to be put on the urgent pathway. It does not mean that there is definitely a cancer present, but that in some people who have similar symptoms- there may be and it is important to rule it out. They always rule out the potentially most serious causes first.
It does sound like the polyp may well be the cause of the bleeding and the biopsy will determine what treatment (if any) is advised. Polyps may well be benign but it is always important to check them out.
I hope that you do not have to wait too long to get your results- my original biopsy results came back at around a week- it can all depend how busy the hospital lab is. In the meantime please do give the Support Line a call if talking things through would help. They are there from 8am-8pm daily.
Jane
