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Ok, so I had a noon-time screening colonoscopy today (Thursday).
Instead of the quick-acting quick-disappearing Michael Jackson drug pNut got at Enloe Hospital, I was at the outpatient clinic and got the Good Stuff-- a heady mix of intravenous Fentanyl, Verced, and Benadryl. What this all adds up to is, if you do happen to feel any pain you won’t remember it. I have an innate high tolerance to anesthesia and pain meds (the red-headed gene) which meant I got to watch the entire procedure on the big screen and joke about it with my providers, all of whom were fabulous.
I even got my favorite gastroenterologist in town, the guy who diagnosed Mom’s biliary cancer 22 years ago and yet still recalled the “bookends” daughters (me and seestah) who sat on either side of her for her every appointment and procedure.
Given that the meds are wearing off rather slowly and that I’m still a bit loopy this afternoon and not consistently stringing more than three thought-beads on a string before losing the thread altogether I thought I’d….wait….where was I?
Oh yeah, here, and start it at :52 seconds, since I couldn’t get tubechop to work, which might be from my current state or the vagaries of DK5).
I was reminded to get my 10 year colonoscopy by a patient who didn’t get the one recommended at age 50, and at age 57 he was diagnosed with a Stage 3 cancer. This means his tumor had grown large enough to obstruct his colon and climb into an adjacent lymph node before he had symptoms and had it treated, hopefully with 100% success.
If discovered seven years earlier, his nascent indolent adenocarcinoma would have probably been scraped off as a polyp and he would now be subjected to excruciating follow-up colonoscopies every few years, but one day of drinking a full gallon of internal salt water bath beats full-blown colon cancer any day of the year.
So I feel obliged to pay it forward and nag you, because why suffer alone is how I see it. Prevention is cheap.
If none of this made sense (but it sure looks good to me right now!) please to enjoy an open thread.
And get your screening colonoscopy if you’re 50 or haven’t had one in 10 years or have a family history of colon cancer. Because really, no matter how much we joke about how awful the prep is, colonoscopy is the one diagnostic procedure that can also be therapeutic: That polyp or pre-cancerous lesion can be snipped or burned off as part of that procedure.
It’s rare when a diagnostic procedure can be therapeutic and preventative.
Be brave. Go for it.
NOW! Let’s talk about something else, shall we?
