You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Colon Cancer.
For some reason when you turn 50, you are suppose to get a colonoscopy.
I don’t know who forged this requirement and galvanized it as a national agenda, but when the door bell rings on your 50th tour around the sun, it becomes this medical mandate.
My doctor has been bugging the hell out of me to get checked.
“Shove a scope where?” I laughed.
I’m healthier than a Shetland pony at a petting zoo. I don’t need a TV camera probing me like some UFO abductee.
“Take me to your leader,” I joke putting on my pants.
“You need to do this,” he says angrily, snapping off a purple glove, tossing it in the silver trash can.
“Thanks Doc. I’ll consider it.”
He rolls his eyes.
And so it has been for the last two years.
Doctor: “Blah Blah Blah. Colonoscopy. Get Checked. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
Me: “Ha Ha. Not me. I am super model of intestinal health. You could eat off my colon it’s so damn clean.”
That was two revolutions around the sun ago.
This past week I called a cop buddy of mine. I don’t know how old he is, but I hadn’t heard from him in weeks.
“Hey dude, where you been?,” I text.
“I got cancer. In the hospital,” he bluntly texts back.
“Yikes.”
“Colon cancer. Spread to my liver. I’m going to beat it.”
He goes on to tell me that his colon cancer was detected through a colonoscopy.
A colonoscopy? Really? Might actually save your life?
I’m driving and thinking and thinking and driving.
I stare at the sunshine blistering into my eyes on I-65.
I think about the journey and the voices over time.
My dad has often asked when I was going to get it done.
“It’s no big deal,” he says.
Suddenly, I’m thinking about it.
Is this an omen?
It might be.
Why have I been procrastinating so much?
I once called the insurance company, hoping it would be so cost prohibitive I could tell everyone that I couldn’t afford good colon health.
But then I actually talked to someone.
“Oh, it’s completely covered, you say? I see. There’s absolutely no cost to me whatsoever?”
The excuses not to do it were diminishing as the reasons to check my health were growing at every turn.
But at the end of the day, dads and girlfriends and doctors couldn’t make me do it.
I was a Mexican on vacation sipping lime flavored beer on this issue.
Manana, I always said to myself.
But a cop in the hospital fighting cancer?
That got my attention.
An omen?
Maybe?
I call the center.
“Hello. Yes. When is your next appointment availability?”
“We have one in 4 days, Monday.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Really sir. That fast?”
“Book it Dan-O”
I’m already 3 tours around the sun over due. Gotta man up today.
Gotta take my medicine, literally.
I have talked to plenty of survivors and they all say the same thing.
The prep is the worst part.
The medicine turns your bottom into a flesh colored version of Mt. Vesuvius.
“Get some baby wipes,” someone says.
Really? Baby Wipes?
Check please!
As I write this, I am staring at a medicine cabinet of potions and elixirs that quite honestly frighten me like a Beware of Dog sign on a crack house.
I have had trepidation and thoughts of backing out.
I have thought about bringing the medicine back to the pharmacy.
I have thought about using the money already spent to spay or neuter a rescue puppy.
But I am staying the course.
I am going to become a digestive fountain of gurgling death later today.
I am going to man up so I can have some peace of mind and go back to my family doctor without getting yelled at like he’s an ex wife owed back alimony.
Wish me well America. I am not excited to be alive today.
Nope. Not one bit.
But maybe the actions of today will allow me to be alive for many more days to come.
Life’s Crazy™