Jewish World Review Sept. 8, 2008 / 8 Elul 5768

The ‘C’ Word

By Steve Young

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | My uncle called to tell me that he had just received a diagnosis of cancer of the colon - not so coincidentally, the same diagnosis that led to the death of his older brother - and my dad - when I was 16. I was only 40 when my uncle, the same age my father was when he died of - dramatic sting here - COLON CANCER!

I'm not trying to be theatrical here. The drama sting is exactly how I normally hear the word "cancer" - even when it's whispered, which it usually is. It's my ring-tone and every time anyone mentions cancer, I also seem to get a call on my cell. It works out perfect because that's how harrowing the word is to me. A major part of the revulsion being the label itself - colon cancer. Now Leukemia, that's a diagnosis you could speak with resonance. But no matter how you spin it, colon cancer couldn't be categorized worse. I take that back. It's also identified as colo-rectal cancer. That isn't just potentially terminal. It's downright humiliating. It's understandable. It's bad enough to have any type of cancer, but then sticking your colon or rectum on top of it... Well, that just stinks.

Put that together with a diagnostic procedure where someone will be sticking a fifteen hundred foot tube into and through your very private privates... How uncomfortable. How embarrassing. How please don't go there. I mean, really. Please. Not there.

Perhaps if we just renamed the procedure. Something like health-tubing or interior-surfing we might look at it with less apprehension. Maybe even look forward to it. Maybe not. Still, it's odd, isn't it? We get our panties in a knot because we're getting a tube with a lovely little video camera fixed to the front of it through a hole THAT'S ALREADY THERE. Save the clench, it's an opening that is hither to...open. That's not bad thing, folks. That's a damn convenient thing.

And to make it even more practical, it takes you right into yon destination: the colon. No muss, no fuss and no need for them cut a hole into your very bleedable skin and tissue, a hole big enough for the hose and camera to fit.

Perhaps if I put it this way. If you lived in Jersey and had great seats for a Broadway play that might very well save your life - say, Spamalot - and you had a limo waiting right at the Weehawken, N.J. entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel, would you rather that driver take you through the tunnel that was already there or would you have the driver drill another tunnel under the Hudson River five miles further away from the theater and end up missing the first act...or die trying?

You would think that no matter where a professional - and let me make this clear...you should have your, um, health-tubing,.done by a professional...a medical professional - must look into to potentially save your life, you would gladly welcome the somewhat awkward intrusion. But if saving your life isn't enough, you should consider the many other benefits of a colonoscopy that are far more attractive than just saving your life.

How many of us wouldn't like to lose ten pounds in one day? Forget Atkins. Forget South Beach. Forget Jenny Craig. Preparing for a Colonoscopy leaves them all in the weight-loss dust. It's a little diet plan that doesn't call for a rigorous exercise regimen, save for the every-fifteen minute dash to the bathroom. I prep for a Colonoscopy and I can't get to a scale fast enough.

"Honey, look. I can fit into my old jeans!"

Of course, I gain it all back with the twenty-thousand calorie lunch I have minutes after the procedure. But for about thirteen-fourteen hours I can lay on my back and actually feel what it's like to have my stomach touching my spine. In fact, I recommend prepping for and having a colonoscopy minutes before every high school reunion.

"Steve, you look as thin as you did in 10th grade."

"Yeah. And as cancerless!"

You will get the day off from work.

"I've got to go in for a little surgical procedure."

"Little? There's no such thing a little surgical procedure, Young. You take all the time you need."

Maybe even two days.

And while nuclear laxatives and having a stranger journey through where, in many cases, no man has gone before, doesn't sound the least bit fun, if you do any standup, you've got an additional fifteen killer minutes that will absolutely floor the baby boomer crowd.

Yes, the benefits are many and the risks are few, save finding out you have a potentially deadly disease at a point in time that it can be treated well before it becomes literally...deadly. Some risk. Yet, there are still a lot of us who would rather die from cancer than find out we have it...and find out we have it while it's still treatable. Did I mention that it you can detect it while it's treatable? Did I mention that "treatable" means that it can be removed and leave you WITHOUT cancer? Some humiliation, aye?

So, if you still have a modicum of ability in the weighing of the options area, you might want to consider that while there has been vast research into the cancer detection value of sticking your head in the ground or covering your ears while you go la-la-la, the colonoscopy still seems to be the best method to catch colon cancer before colon cancer catches you. So, I'll leave it up to you. Which do you find more embarrassing? Dying of embarrassment or dying of colon cancer?

Drama sting!