I'm a 30 year old female and I have never been through childbirth nor been pregnant. Over the summer on occasion I would have small amounts of rectal bleeding when I would go to the bathroom. In the fall it got worse, and I noticed a fleshy lump near the opening. I went to my general practitioner who thought perhaps hemorrhoids and gave me a cream. The cream shrunk the lump down and the bleeding stopped, but after about 2 months it all came back but worse. Now every time I use the bathroom there is blood, sometimes a lot and its bright red. Its both in the bowl and on the paper. Also, it now feels like there is a tearing pain near the opening while I'm going and that seems to be when the blood starts to really appear. My gp referred me to a gastroenterologist who I met with the other day and he didn't examine me but asked some questions, and said he wants to do a colonoscopy. I feel like he didn't explain too much to me and I'm just wondering what it sounds like it could be? He named off 5 or 6 different things but did not seem to have a particular diagnosis in mind. Also is that a bit drastic, to jump right into a colonoscopy? I have no digestion problems, some constipation and hard stools, and I know I tense up going to the bathroom now because I'm afraid of bleeding which I'm sure makes it worse. The lump does swell and go back down to very small depending on how much I have had to push or if I'm constipated and so on. I'm really scared about the colonoscopy, esp considering I'm fairly young. I know cancer is always a possibility and that lump makes me nervous, I just wish I knew if my dr. was leaning that way or more towards a disorder and wondering what it sounded more like to people out there?