Update....
After three biopsies, one MRI and a CT scan, it's been confirmed it's stage 2 bowel cancer. Bugger. It's still early and so it's treatable, but needless to say the diagnosis has floored me a little - this isn't me, I'm fit, strong and healthy and haven't had anything worse than chicken pox until last autumn. It just doesn't seem real.
My consultations to date have all been at Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport which has been exemplary - the first biopsy showed negative but the consultant wasn't convinced as he also saw the photos (now THOSE photos would have beaten all the selfies on FB! Inside as well as out). The second biopsy was on the cusp so he did the third himself under general anaesthetic and made sure he took a large enough chunk. Thank God he did.
Having read for hours and hours about hormones and realised how little some (particularly my own) doctors know about these things has actually given me the confidence to question and challenge where the bowel cancer's concerned. The consultant's recommended strategy doesn't suit me and after probing there are alternate solutions available, one which is fairly new to the UK but has been used in France for 40 years with excellent results (contact radiotherapy). He's agreed to refer me to a specialist cancer centre at Clatterbridge on the Wirral for further discussion and hopefully treatment there. In the interim I'm making radical changes to diet and lifestyle to give my body its best chances.
On the plus side, I got the hormones sorted and underway, hopefully this one will be rectified too.