Get Your Colonoscopy!

Bad news and good news—first the bad: A very close friend’s mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. But the very good news is that her disease was caught so early she won’t even need chemotherapy.

Why? She had a colonoscopy! Had she not taken this life saving step, a few years down the road she would have found herself in very serious—perhaps lethal—trouble.

Readers of SHS may recall that I became a big believer in colonoscopies after mine last summer disclosed a small benign tumor that was excised during the procedure. While it was not the kind that becomes cancerous, it could have grown to the point that I too might have been in for some serious trouble.

Colon cancer killed my father and I have seen the difficulties it can cause. But colon cancer is readily preventable—by removing pre-cancerous polyps—or detectable at the early and eminently treatable stage. If you are 50 or older and haven’t had a colonoscopy, please make an appointment for a specialist put a small diagnostic tube where the sun don’t shine. It won’t hurt. The drugs make it so you barely remember it. It may be a cliche` but it is still true: The life you save could well be your own.