Saturday, March 14, 2009

More Information Than You Wanted.....

Okay, people. Hope you're not eating at the moment, but I got a wake-up call the other day and some readers out there probably need one, too. My cousin was recently diagnosed with advanced colon cancer at age 41. That was impetus enough for me to get a colonoscopy myself, which was done this past Thursday. Although "they" (who are "they", anyway?!) say you should have colonoscopies starting at age 50, I am glad I had one done before then. I am 45, healthy, take no medications, walk/run a couple of miles nearly every day, and try to watch what I eat. So I was very surprised to be told that I had three polyps and diverticulosis. Two of the polyps were small but one of them was, in the doctor's words, "rather large and ugly-looking". All of them were removed and sent off for biopsy and I will find out the results in three weeks.

Polyps are generally slow-growing critters, so at least the large one has evidently been taking up residence in my nether regions for a while now. What if I had waited until I was 50? How large and ugly-looking would it have been then? I have posted two of the pictures they gave me; one is one of the small polyps (the two smaller ones looked alike), and the other picture is the ugly one. I warned you - I truly hope you weren't eating when you started reading this post!

My hope in sharing this information is that you will take this seriously - I'll be honest; I went in there thinking that everything would be great and that was that. Now I will wait three weeks to see if Ol' Ugly is benign, precancerous, or cancerous. I do hope that this is a wake-up call to my dear brother o'mine and sister o'mine. I was the guinea pig for this stuff - now it's your turn!

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