Earlier Colon Cancer Screening Saves Lives

Articles regarding earlier colon cancer screening state that the practice will save more lives. Some experts state that the screening should be performed annually rather than every three to ten years. Part of the problem, some doctors say, is the costs involved.

I'll tell you what the problem is, it's the damned pre-procedure prep that you gotta do the day before. You have to suck down this horrid bowel preparation fluid, Fleet, which tastes like sea water only ten times saltier. And if that weren't bad enough, Dr. recommended doses of Fleet have been found to be harmful. The stuff makes you go, and go, and go! Your bowels are clean as a whistle after that maneuver. (I'll pause here for the shuddering over that visual to subside.)

The other problem is the fasting prior to the screening. If memory serves, you cannot eat anything other than yellow jello for twenty four hours prior to the procedure. I know it's all for the good to determine if one has a problem in the nether regions, but I found in the hours prior to my appointment, all I could think about was FOOOOOOD. That and how I was sick and tired of visiting the porcelain throne to shoot yet another watery spray down the tubes. (Insert another pause here.)

Therefore, when experts say it's the costs that keep patients from having this screening, I say Bull. It's the prep work that comes WAAAAAY before that bill that prevents people lining up at the screeners door.


A serious side

All humor aside, I did have a colonoscopy in my fiftieth year and was found to have had two pre-cancerous polyps. So now I have to have this procedure done every three years instead of every ten. In addition, our family had lost a friend we've known for four decades to colon cancer last month, and my dad was recently diagnosed with the condition.

So even though the whole routine is a Pain in the Ass, please consider having the procedure if you're over 50, and make sure your loved ones do, too. It may save your life.
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