WordUp by Chad Gramling

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Some of you know this . . . most do not.

I’ve been going to a doctor for an “issue” I have had with an area of the body we tend to not like talking much about. I haven’t blogged about it because quite frankly, I don’t like telling stories where I don’t already know - or at least have a real good idea about - the ending (no pun intended).

You all know the saying about “Opinions are like . . . “

Well, long story short: during the summer I had a serious infection that made it feel almost like I had two “opinions.” Let’s just say that going to the bathroom was quite frightening and painful. That’s an area where you really don’t want to see blood. After trying several “remedies” and dealing with months of pain, I broke down and saw a doctor. He prescribed an antibiotic (to deal with the infection more than the underlying cause). At the follow-up a couple weeks later, I still had some of the infection and the overall problem. He referred me to a specialist.

By the time I saw the specialist; the infection had gone away (and therefore so did a lot of the pain). He diagnosed the cause (a good description can be found here) but worried there might be BIGGER issues such as Crohn’s Disease or even cancer. He then said the most dreaded five-syllable word on the planet . . . ‘Colonoscopy.”

For a couple weeks, I feared the worst. The day before, I endured the worst (no food for a whole day and 255 grams of MiraLAX mixed with a gallon of Gatorade which was drank over a two-hour span . . .when I wasn’t in the bathroom).

Fortunately, the procedure was uneventful and even less memorable. There were no additional issues but there was some unfortunately news . . . a procedure to repair the fistula and another day of no food plus more MiraLAX mixed in Gatorade.

It’s now been a week since that procedure. I’m still in some pain, but it’s getting better every day and I will soon be a little less “opinionated.”

I hesitated to share this experience in the blogging community because I know that the issue is one that is often thought of as humorous and embarrassing. Because of that fact, a lot of people may ignore signs or problems that should not be ignored. What if something bigger was wrong and I waited too long? I wouldn’t even have the opportunity to be blogging this right now.

Now I am not going to become a wacko advocate of routine colon cleansing (which is silly) and I’m not going to go on TV or write a book to talk about a procedure that isn’t out of the ordinary in any fashion. But I think it is important for folks to sometimes realize there are things that aren’t funny. Dying because you are scared or foolish of thought isn’t one of them. Dallas Maverick’s owner, Mark Cuban says it so much better (and colorfully):

I’m writing this post because I hated the fact that I was afraid of getting a colonoscopy. It honestly scared me. I don’t like hospitals. I don’t like entries into exit lanes and its [sic] scary as shit that they could find something. In other words I was a pussy when I shouldn’t have been.

I encourage you to read his entire post and remember it. He’s right. There was absolutely no reason to fear the procedure itself. Nobody likes doctors and everybody fears their own mortality. But I wonder if my father would be alive today if he hadn’t ignored that “sore throat” for so many months and perhaps years. Nature has a wonderful way of telling us that something is wrong. Our bodies are created to alert us to trouble and there are many tests available to help use recognize when we are operating outside our normal modes (random laud to Rodney Olsen).

We should do more to pay attention to these warnings.

[tags]health, colonoscopy, fear, medicine, normal, anxiety, humanity, social stigmas[/tags]