But Did You Die?
Imagine this: you’ve been heavily drugged and are being kept suspended between life and death. Someone is standing at your bedside watching the machine to which you’ve been hooked up so as to monitor your heartbeat and breathing. Meanwhile someone else pumps about 17 liters of air into your bowel and then inserts a five foot tube with a fiberoptic video camera on its end straight into your anus, traveling it up the entire length of your colon.
Sounds like something you’d see in a horror film or on Criminal Minds or some other such tv show about serial killers, right? Now you understand why I kept putting off having a colonoscopy?!! I was scared. I mean really, really scared. The procedure sounded torturous.
I know all too well how deadly and pervasive colon cancer can be. I’ve lost friends to the disease. Also, I am thought to be at high risk for it because a close family member has had—and survived—colon cancer. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. “However,” my gastroenterologist, Dr. Adewale Ajumobi, explained, “it is 100 percent preventable…with a colonoscopy. Early detection is key.” Still, I couldn’t bring myself to have the procedure. I would book a date with my doctor only to cancel days later. My mind was filled with a million “what if”s. What if they put me under and I didn’t wake up? What if they perforated my bowel? What if I did it and they found something horrible? The whole thing was just too unnerving. I made one excuse after another. Covid was, of course, my go-to excuse. And I wasn’t alone in that. Since 2020, the rate of colonoscopy screenings has fallen by 90%.
Then everything changed. One morning I noticed what I believed to be blood in my stool. Not a little, either. Suddenly, shit got very real (pun very much intended). I was only 53. We were in the midst of a global pandemic. There I was washing and sanitizing my hands, wearing masks, doing everything possible to protect myself from Covid because I wanted to live. Why, then, was I being so careless about protecting myself from something as serious as colon cancer? I hoped and prayed that my senseless procrastination wouldn’t cost me my life. I called my doctor and begged for the first available appointment. Also, I figured out that the huge portion of beets in the Buddha bowl I’d eaten the night before was to blame for the red in my stools. But that experience had brought me to my senses, so there was no going back. Nothing was going to prevent me from having that colonoscopy.
The prep, which everyone warned would be horrible, was actually not unlike any of the dozen health cleanses I’d done in the past. In fact, because of my history with cleanses, I knew to begin several days earlier than suggested so the process of purging wouldn’t be as unpleasant. The procedure itself was unremarkable and, given all the anxiety I’d had about it over a period of several years, rather anticlimactic. The medication put me under too quickly to even count backwards by a single number; and, just as quickly, I was awake again. Not only did I not die, there was no discomfort, and no pain. Not during, and not after. Also, no cancer was detected and I didn’t have any polyps. It was a huge relief to just know that.
Listen: if you’re over 45, which is currently the recommended age for a first colonoscopy, and you’ve been putting off having the procedure, take it from someone who completely understands your fear and apprehension: you’re truly making a mountain out of a molehill. Don’t wait until you’re sick and symptomatic to have it performed. Do it now so you can stay healthy for as long as possible.
If you happen to also be Black, please run, don’t walk, to the gastroenterologist to schedule a colonoscopy. According to the American Cancer society, “African Americans are about 20% more likely to get colorectal cancer and about 40% more likely to die from it than most other groups.”
If you’re under the age of 45, don’t be so quick to exhale because you’re in an especially tricky position. Even though colorectal cancer rates have declined for people over 50, since the 1990s they have more than doubled for adults under 50. This year the American Cancer Society estimates that adults under 50 will account for 12% of all new colon cancer diagnoses. That’s about 18,000 cases.
According to a study that was published this past April in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), by the year 2030 (seriously, that’s less than ten years from now) colorectal cancer will be the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in people aged 20 to 49. It’s especially important, then, to be knowledgeable and vigilant. Often, by the time people are diagnosed based on symptoms, the cancer is advanced.
The good news for everyone is that in its initial stages, colorectal cancer is slow-growing. It begins as a polyp, and takes 7-10 years to develop into a tumor. When colorectal cancer is caught at Stage 1 or 2, the survival rate is 90%. At Stage 3, it’s 70%. By Stage 4, it’s 14%.
In the last several weeks, I have spoken with three friends who had recently been told that they have colon cancer. They are, all three, optimistic and, thankfully, in each case, the prognosis is good.
As with nearly everything in this life, time is of the essence. Too often, we allow our fear, hesitation, and procrastination to cost us a great deal and to, ultimately, rob us of so much. As soon as you’re done reading this, take the time to do some of the health-related things you’ve been putting off: schedule that mammogram, colonoscopy, annual physical, checkup with the ophthalmologist or dentist; make an appointment to get that injury, bump, mole, pain, tremor looked at; get that prescription filled. It won’t kill you to do it. But guess what? Not doing it, just might.