Wow, you all responded quickly! I'm impressed and touched, really.
I had had bleeding in my stool for years but was told it was hemorrhoids, and that there was not much I could do about them short of Tucks and sitz baths. After I gave birth to my daughter, the bleeding got worse but I was told it was hemorrhoids then as well. The real concern started when I would go for a week without having a bowel movement about a year ago. I would feel ill until I could get everything out. I took fiber capsules and drank coffee but nothing seemed to get things moving. Things progressed and got a little scarier when I started to notice that there was a lot of mucus trailing after my stool. My husband had a job that had good insurance (temporarily) so we rushed in to make the appointment before his coverage ended.
I did tell my brother tonight that he needs to get checked out. My dad had a foot of his colon removed a few years ago due to polyps and when I initially told my GI this, they were unconcerned because my dad is 63, and it's not uncommon for a 63 year-old man to have polyps.
When the doctor called me today, it was out of the blue, as I had an appointment scheduled for the 18th. I was shocked (in a sense, because I never completely counted 'cancer' out of the realm of possibility) to hear him say "precancerous" and I really didn't know what to ask him. I don't know if the polyp was adenomatous, sessile or pedunculated but I definitely have some terms to brush up on! If I had to guess, I'd say it was pedunculated, based on the grape-shaped polyp I saw in the little glass jar.
Are there any other questions I should ask him when I speak with him again? As I'm sure you can tell, I'm new to this whole thing, and don't really know how to wrap my mind around it.
I will try and seek genetic screening for Lynch Syndrome. I'm concerned that with my awful insurance, it won't be covered. Maybe when I get a job with health insurance I can look into that further.
PolarPrincess- that is odd how different the experience can be with a polyp that was relatively the same size. When he showed it to me, I was drugged up, and I recall saying "that looks big.. is it?" and he told me it was. That's about all I remember from that experience, thankfully