Luckily for me, I decided to have a colonoscopy done.  It was very kind of Alice Pang to have taken the effort to trouble her friends at the hospital to help make that special arrangement for me to have the procedure a day before my other scheduled appointment at the hospital.  It was also very kind of Dr. Ho Kok Sun to agree to see me although he was on leave on that day.

After consulting with Dr. Ho, it was decided that I should also do a scope of my stomach since my father and his sister (my favourite aunty) both had cancer of the stomach.

A Polyp stealthily growing inside my stomach (Bottom left corner)

Besides finding out that there is some gastric erosion, a 6mm polyp was also found and subsequently removed.

I read that stomach polyps are rare; occuring in only 1 percent of people undergoing gastrointestinal endoscopy.  However, there are three common types of stomach polyps

1) Hyperplastic polyps which account for more than half of all the stomach polyps and develop into cancer in about 2percent of the cases;

2) Fundic gland polyps which don't become cancerous except in some people with Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAM) syndrome.  FAM is an inherited disorder.

3) Adenomas which have a significant chance of becoming cancerous and arise from the stomach's glandular tissue; these account for about 10% of stomach polyps.

In any case, having a polyp of any kind growing inside the stomach is bad. So it was very fortunate of me to have had the scope done.

What were discovered inside my colon was even more shocking ...

A monster growth almost becoming a cancer (top row) and a polyp (bottom left)

This monster would definitely develop into a fierce cancer if left unchecked

After the scopes were done, the next few days waiting to see Dr. Ho for the biopsy reports were quite testing.  The symptoms that caused me to go for the scopes coupled by the fact that indeed somethings were found inside my colon, got me to surf the internet absorbing everything I could find on the subject of colon surgery.  It was such a relief when Dr. Ho told me (not in so many words) that that monster has 'not yet become cancerous'.  "We may have just caught it in the nick of time."  Gosh.

It was indeed very very fortunate for me to have discovered it now and fortunate also that it was possible to have it removed during the procedure despite its size.  The picture below shows how a polyp is removed.  If that monsterous growth of mine had been any larger that the snare couldn't loop, I would have had to go for surgery to have it removed instead.

I am indeed one very lucky fellow.  I urge everyone to go for a scope if you have not already done so. 

After having gone through so many stints on my health, I decided to create a website to help those who may require emergency assistance; hence www.savemylife.org  Click on the link to take a look.