Why I Had a Colonoscopy at the Age of 29

Here is another article I published on Yahoo!, discussing the importance of colonoscopy screenings and why they need to be part of the broader medical discussion.

Colonoscopies save lives, yet the current recommendations are woefully inadequate. The current recommended age to begin screenings is 50, yet more and more colorectal cancers are occurring at younger ages, making earlier screenings absolutely vital.

Colorectal cancers are entirely treatable, and early detection saves lives.

Added bonus

My gene pool is closed for maintenance

Okay, so the other day I referenced something about genetics and how they suck. Let's discuss that further, shall we?

So as you know I went in for a colonscopy/endoscopy a couple of weeks ago, and everything looked okay. I still needed to wait for the biopsy results regarding Celiac's and colitis, but I wasn't too worried because I was highly certain I did not have colitis (since it's a pretty severe and obvious illness), and if I did end up having Celiac's I would just alter my diet. No biggie.

So here I am thinking all is well and the ordeal was over until my next colonoscopy (as of right now my doctor wants me to do them every two years).

Wrong.

Last Monday I get a phone call from the Providence Comprehensive Breast Center informing me that my gastroenterologist referred me to them as a "potential high risk patient". Because of my family medical history, I may or may not have the mutated genes linked to certain cancers, upping my overall cancer risk substantially.

(Much like Angelina Jolie, her positive BRCA-1 result, and her preventative double mastectomy. Her cancer risk went from 87% to under 5%, which is awesome)

So the gal at the Breast Center informed me that I need to fill out a comprehensive family history form and bring that in to my appointment. Once there, one of the geneticist's nurse practitioners will plug my information into a computer and get a risk percentage. If my risk turns out to be high, they will then take a DNA sample to be sent off for genetic testing.

7-10% of breast/ovarian cancers and colon/uterine cancers are from a hereditary mutated gene, and 30% of all cancers are familial. Based on my dad's incredibly early and aggressive colon cancer, my doctor suspects his cancer may have been because of a mutated gene, rather than bad luck, and that I therefore would carry this gene as well.

They would be testing me for the BRCA or HNPCC genes, the so-called "cancer genes" that would... well, ruin my day, quite frankly!

(Of course, were I to test positive for the HNPCC gene, I can't really have a preventative colon removal... it's not like taking off your boobies and replacing them with new ones!)

However, the caveat to all this is that the gene testing is very expensive (and let's face it, I'm not exactly in Angelina Jolie's income bracket!) so they only do it if it is deemed absolutely necessary, and only if insurance covers it fully, or if I'm willing to cough up the dough to cover the remainder myself.

BUT, even if I end up in the low-risk category, or if I can't have the test done because insurance says no, I will still leave there with a very detailed and personally specific plan on preventing cancer, as well as early detection signs.

Because I'm not even 30 yet, I have young children, and I have a lot of living left to do. I'm not going down without a fight, dammit!

Footloose and cancer free

Hey hey!

I'm back and better than ever!

Suffice it to say that Thursday and Friday sucked big time, but I'll get to that.

First of all, the weather in Seattle is Ah-mazing! Holy crap I'm loving it!

The only problem is I have stupid school stuff to do, so even though I wanted to go hiking today, I don't think that's a responsible thing to do. Boo.

Oh well. Summer is almost here. Which means no school! You better believe I will be hiking the crap out of this summer!

Also, my garden is starting to sprout! It's been so freaking cold lately that nothing was happening, but now that the sun made its reappearance and the thermostat is a-rockin', things are beginning to grow! It's supposed to stay nice for the next several days (fingers crossed) so I'll be keeping an eye out for those cute little sprouts curling up and pushing the dirt out of their way.

Okay, so on to Thursday and Friday.

Thursday was "prep day", which is basically a generic medical term for "you will be miserable and hungry all day".

After taking the kids to school, I cleaned my house and slapped on the pretty as quickly as possible, then proceeded to take the four 'starter' pills at exactly 9 am.

For the next few hours I subsisted on tea (lots of tea!), water, and Jell-o. Now, I'm not a huge Jell-o fan to begin with, and when it's the only "food" you are allowed to eat, it makes it all the more depressing. I really came to hate that unnatural, jiggly substance by the end of the day.

The Husband came home from work early, as I was... shall we say... uneasy at the thought of leaving the house and being trapped in a car for 30 minutes to pick up the kids from school. Ahem.

While he headed out to get the kids, I prepped the gallon jug of electrolyte solution that I had to drink.

GAG!!!

The nurse had suggested mixing it with Crystal Light to make it taste better. I can't imagine what it would have tasted like without the Crystal Light, as my flavored concoction still tasted something akin to a homeless man's bathwater.

I will never, I repeat NEVER, drink Crystal Light again.

Blergh!!!

The only way I could get the electrolyte stuff down was with it being ice cold.

Like, ice ice ICE cold.

That was the only way it was tolerable.

This also made me super cold. At this point, I hadn't slept well in several days and hadn't eaten solid food in 18 hours. Because of this, I was under my electric blanket shivering, which made drinking this solution even more miserable.

But I got through it, and my system was, uh, cleaned out sufficiently...

I didn't sleep at all Thursday night. Partly because I was nervous about the procedures on Friday, and partly because I was still dealing with the after effects of the electrolyte stuff.

Friday morning my alarm went off at 5:50 am. Gag. I hit snooze once, but I just stared at the wall. Even though I'd maybe gotten three hours of sleep (at most) and was utterly exhausted, I was wide awake.

This was it. The day of reckoning.

I got up, got ready to go, and once my mom arrived to watch the kids, The Husband and I headed out.

Naturally, it was a bright and sunny day, and since I had to wear my glasses for the procedure (no contacts, safety precaution), I got an instant headache. I just curled up in the front seat, covered my eyes with the sleeves of my sweatshirt, and grumbled begrudgingly.

Hubs and I were both nervous, so there wasn't a lot of talking during the 35 minute drive to the clinic.

I got there, got checked in, and within a few minutes a nurse came to collect me from the waiting room. She had me change into one of those medical gowns that do nothing to hide your modesty and gave me little booties to put over my socks.

She walked me back to the triage area, where I nestled into a reclining chair with several warmed up blankets (at this point, the best part of my morning!).

It took them three tries to thread my IV catheter into a vein, so I have a massive bruise on my right hand from the burst blood vessel. It looks gross. Luckily, they were really good at what they were doing (minus the missing the vein part) so the multiple pokes with a needle didn't hurt.

After this, The Husband was brought back, and we waited for my doctor to come and explain the process to me. After he did, we waited a few more minutes, and then the nurse came to collect me and bring me back to the procedure room.

This is when I got really nervous. Up until this point, I had thought Hubs could be in the room with me, but it turns out he couldn't. Gulp.

I was shaking at this point, and the nurse could tell I was silently freaking out, so she chitchatted with me about my tattoos. Apparently she goes to the same tattoo parlor I do, so we discussed the different artists there and how it's the best one in the area.

Once she got me situated, IV cords and all, on the exam gurney thingy, she injected the Happy Drugs into my IV, and this is where everything gets a little... fuzzy.

I've had to ask Hubs several times since Friday "so is this what happened?", "they said this right?", "I think I remember this...yes?"

It's weird not being able to trust your memory and having whole chunks of time be missing!

Anyway, after we got home I spent the rest of the day either in bed or on the couch. I felt like crap! Anesthesia affects me quite strongly, so it took a long time to fully leave my system, plus after having not eaten for a full 24 hours, those two components combined to make me incredibly weak and nauseous.

BUT!

Once I did start feeling better, Hubs grilled me the most delicious steak and roasted the best potatoes ever, in celebration of the fact that....

... Everything came back normal!!!!

My colon and intestine and stomach are all good to go!

No polyps! No cancer! No gremlins!

I am waiting for the results of the biopsies to test for celiac's, and a couple other things. But regardless of those results, it will all come down to making changes to my diet. Compared to other, more life altering possibilities, I am more than willing to alter what I eat!

So yeah, all good news!

No offense, but you suck as a person

First of all, I just wanted to say that I'm in a much better headspace today. I spent a few days bouncing around inside my brain, and quite frankly, it's a dark and scary place in there!

Lorelei understands

But I've emerged, none worse for the wear.

Granted, I'm still nervous and anxious about Friday, but not in a fetal-position-whimpering-reassuringly-whispering-to-myself kind of way. More in a "alright, fine, let's just do the damned thing" kind of way.

So here we are. Tuesday. Under-caffeinated. Coming down with a cold. Behind in this week's school work. Could really go for a nap.

But instead, I'm going to vent for a sec, then go back to reading about Hinduism for my World Religion's class.

So ever have one of those friends that seem great at first, but then the more you get to know them and the more they come around, the more you realize you actually don't like them as a human being and their presence makes you want to rip your face off?

Yeah.

I'm having that sort of thing happening right now.

Only it's not my friend, it's The Husband's friend.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those jealous, controlling harpies that's just pissed her man is hanging out with someone other than her. No, no.

Even my husband has grown weary of this friend.

See, here's the situation...

So for awhile, this friend was married and doing the whole work/family/spouse thing, and we saw them maybe every two or three months. And that was totally fine. They seemed pleasant enough, and we had a good time hanging out (besides the fact that their children were horribly behaved and would never leave my house without having destroyed something first, and the wife couldn't hold a conversation, which was challenging).

Then, as their marriage deteriorated, we saw them less and less, until finally they separated. Then we only saw this friend occasionally when he was passing through town- again, probably once every couple of months.

This once-every-few-months trend continued for quite some time, until the guy's dating life in his home town quickly dried up (partly because it's already slim pickings to begin with in such a small town, and partly because, well, turns out he's not so pleasant...but we'll come to that). Once the dating scene no longer had anything (or, anyone) to offer him, he began venturing over to our neck of the woods more and more.

Once a month.

Once every three weeks.

Now it's once every other week, sometimes more.

(And he's planning to move over here soon... sweet baby Jesus, help me)

Somewhere along the way, this trend developed where this friend would stop by on his way either in or out of town and I'd end up making dinner for him.

Then it quickly turned into an assumption that on his way back home every weekend he could stop by our house and get a free meal and a bottle of wine.

And then this past weekend, he showed up with all of his kids in tow- not having given us a heads up that all of them would be here, mind you- and assumed that I'd feed everyone.

I was...displeased, to say the least. On top of which, when he got here he dumped his kids off (without consulting me first) to go to the store to get wine (of course) and within five minuted of his children being here I was having to clean up pee in the guest bathroom because his children still can't seem to hit the toilet (and trust me, they are old enough to know better) (but at least this time they didn't pee in the corner of a room, or in the sink, or the garbage can, or a potted plant, or on each other... I kid you not...)

Anyway, I think that all of this- the assumptions, the taking for granted, the feeling slightly walked over- would be tolerable, except for this lovely little personality quirk that The Husband and I began to notice a couple of months ago.

The friend seems to live in this delusional, ironic world where he feels totally justified in making comments and offering advice on any and all topics, and meanwhile his life is an epic tornado of chaos and filth.

Erm...Seriously?!?

He has tried to give me parenting advice on how to teach my youngest son manners (which you just don't do, ask any parent!) all the while his children, as mentioned above, have no concept of manners, are barely potty trained when they are far too old to still be having issues with that, haven't been taught to wash their hands, shower, or have any sort of personal hygiene, and tear through anywhere they enter like it's a free-for-all bouncy house.

And really dude, you want to give me advice on how to teach my two year-old how to remember to say please and thank you?!? Are you kidding me?!? Step off, bro.

And not being biased, but my two year-old has better manners than any of your children, so focus on your own brood and keep your trap shut.

On top of this, he asks constantly if I'm still working out regularly (none of your freaking business, why do you care?), tells me that I need to not let my oldest son eat so much or else he'll be a fat kid (even though he's skinny as a rail and incredibly active, and this friend's kids are all pudgy), comments about and questions my husband's and my eating habits (even though this friend has gained quite a bit of weight lately, literally cannot cook, and wouldn't know a vegetable or whole grain if it hit him in the face), and constantly makes these snarky, belittling digs at my husband, which really pisses me off.

But the worst part?

This friend likes to throw around how much money he makes. Constantly. Like, any chance he gets to bring it up, he will.

He's also totally taking advantage of my husband (or trying at least), yet he acts like he's doing us this huge favor by hanging around.

All of it adds up to a total lack of tact, humility, and self-awareness. And I'm just done dealing with it.

I told my husband I don't want this guy coming around for awhile, because I'm sick of his shit. When he was here this past weekend, I literally had the urge to punch him in his smug face.

I can step back and psychologize the situation and see that this friend is genuinely unhappy in his life, and therefore is probably trying to tear us down in order to make himself feel better. But it's unnecessary, inappropriate, and I'm done dealing with it.

He's not God's gift to the business world.

He's not God's gift to the dating world.

I'm sorry, but he's not all that great as an overall person.

With him being suddenly so involved in our lives, I've realized (as has my husband) that he's not a very nice person after all. No wonder his wife was so miserable! If he makes these comments to me, I can only imagine the misogynistic crap he threw her way.

Bye bye gluten...?

So, I'm not gonna lie... I'm having a hard day today.

This is the week of my colonoscopy/endoscopy, and I'm starting to get really nervous.

I have absolutely no appetite. In fact, food is repulsing me. I can't focus on school. My thought processes are disjointed, as if I had a ton of caffeine, only I haven't.

I don't know why I'm so freaked out. I genuinely don't think they're going to find cancer. I don't.

But I think it's the other spectrum of possibilities that is beginning to weigh on me.

On the one end of this spectrum, it could be absolutely nothing and they could send me home saying "You're fine, we don't know why you feel like crap all the time, too bad, good luck". And I'll have had a somewhat invasive procedure done for nothing.

On the other end (minus the cancer option, of course), they could find a ton of polyps, or precancerous lesions, or, I don't know, gremlins. I could have celiac's, or an ulcer, which would be perfectly deal-with-able if not slightly inconvenient. I don't know what other options are for what they'll find, and quite frankly, I'm purposely not looking it up because I don't want to scare myself.

I'm also full-on dreading the prep I have to do for the procedure. Namely drinking a gallon of disgusting laxatives and then... well... you know... dealing with that. *yay me!*

I just don't like the unknown, and this is one big unknown.

Having done a little research into celiac's, it is a fairly decent contender for explaining my symptoms. Apparently, 1 in 133 Americans have celiac's disease, and only something like 5 percent even know it. However, because the definition and diagnosis for celiac's is so narrow, tons of people have all the same symptoms and yet fail to technically have the full blown autoimmune disease. They're still working out the definition and diagnosis for gluten intolerance, or gluten allergy, or gluten sensitivity- whatever it will end up being called. Either way, avoiding gluten makes it all better for both groups of people, and I've been considering doing a trial run of going gluten-free, to see if it helps, even if I don't come back as officially having celiac's.

This of course poses a whole other conundrum of changing out my entire diet. I love me some bread and pasta, I've never been one of those carb-free girls. Carbs be good, dammit! But now I will have to switch things out and start researching foods and recipes...it could be fun! It's also adding to my stress though, because that's just the mental space I am in right now.

My husband's coworker has celiac's, and she's a total foodie and has a million cookbooks and recipes, so I think I'm going to hit her up for info and advice.

And until then... I'm going to try and eat something. An apple and two bites of oatmeal does not suffice!

Scoping it out

So first of all, the garden is officially planted! Whoohoo! Today was finally nice enough, for once.

Second, I mentioned previously about going to see a gastroenterologist last week, and that I would go into that in a whole separate post.

Well, ladies and gents, this is that post. Aren't you excited?!? I know I am...

Suffice it to say... the appointment didn't go as I'd expected. It was just a consultation, and I fully expected that this doctor would be like all the other doctors with whom I have discussed my symptoms- he'd tell me I was fine and that we'd address that whole pesky family-history-of-colon-cancer thing at a later date- a condescending verbal pat on the head, if you will.

Nope.

Dude got right down to business, and he wasn't messing around. He said that while he doesn't think my current symptoms indicate anything serious (which I expected), the significantly early age of my dad's cancer is "deeply concerning" (uh oh).

Apparently back when my dad had cancer (1999-2000) they didn't really do genetic testing very commonly in order to determine the cause of someone's cancer- whether it be gene mutation or bad luck. Nowadays they do the genetic test almost all the time, and especially in someone who's cancer is an outlier (as my dad's was). Since there is no way to know if my dad got this test or not without some serious medical sleuthing and cyberstalking family members I haven't been in contact with in 20 years, that's a crinkle in the "plan" (I have a "plan"?...oh crap...). Because genetic-based cancers tend to be far more aggressive than 'bad luck' cancers, I may end up having to have colonoscopies done every year- rather than every five years- to stay on top of any potential changes. Lucky me.

He also started throwing out percentages, but I've chosen to block those out because they freaked be out a bit.

But the GI doc won't really know what path to take until we get the first test out of the way, so we scheduled a colonoscopy. He also scheduled an endoscopy (tube down the throat) because apparently my persistent and unexplained nausea and heartburn is also bad (um...crap) and could be a sign of celiac's disease (dammit...). So I get to drink a gallon of industrial-strength paint thinner laxatives AND have a biopsy of my duodenum.

Fun day!

Cat puke and cancer screenings

Okay, so first of all, what is it about animals that makes them feel compelled to eat non-edible items and then proceed to puke them back up in my entry way or on the bamboo area rug under my dining table?!?

Because seriously.

It's gross.

Is this a feline thing?

Is my cat just extra-special stupid?

Is he a vindictive ass-hat who's doing it on purpose to make my life difficult?

At some point last night or the wee hours of this morning he ate three pieces of yarn and part of a Nerf dart, and clearly his little body didn't approve of that snack, and now I have a stain on my area rug that I'm still trying to figure out how to get rid of without ruining the hardwood floors underneath.

*grumblegrumble*

I'm contemplating using Spot Shot, because that stuff gets anything out of carpet.
                                                          

Seriously. Anything.

Tea, lentil soup, bloody nose, Crayola marker, mud/traffic stains, you name it, I've removed the stain with this stuff.

I'm just not sure if it'll hurt the wood floors, and I'm a little hesitant to risk it....

Stupid cat.

ANYWAY!!!

I mentioned awhile back about being somewhat of a vegetarian. I used to be really good at it, and in the last several months I've gotten a little too lax about it. When life gets busy it's easy to fall into a pattern of what is easy, rather than what is healthy.

And suffice it to say I've definitely been feeling the effects of falling off the veggie-saurus wagon.

See, the whole reason I quit eating meat in the first place was because for several years I'd been having digestive "issues", and couldn't figure out why. I tried cutting out caffeinated beverages, fried foods, dairy, wheat, all the usual suspects, and with only limited improvement. Then, when I cut out meat, BAM! Instant improvement.

And thus my veggie-saurus-ness was born.

I am someone who is probably more aware of my digestive patterns than most. I can't help it, it's ingrained in me at this point.

My dad died of colon cancer when I was 16.

At first, I didn't really know much about it or make a point to learn. I think I was in denial about the whole thing and it took me a few years to work through all that (but that's a whole blog post unto itself, so we'll discuss that another time).

Finally, the more I came to accept what happened, the more I was willing to learn about colon cancer. Signs, symptoms, prevention, all that jazz.

So I am aware of the need for high fiber intake. I know that diets high in Vitamin D3 aid significantly in prevention and during treatment, and that D3 deficiencies have been linked to various cancers, specifically colorectal cancers. I know that red meats, processed meats, and charred meats are directly linked to colorectal cancers. And I know the red flags that something has gone awry in your guts.

And right now, I am experiencing some of those red flags.

Now, I'm not in some panicked tizzy thinking that I totally have cancer or anything like that. I haven't had... ahem... blood... you know... back there... and that's usually the first big sign that you likely have colon cancer.

So I'm not freaking out.

But my digestive patterns have been, shall we say, less than ideal lately. In the opposite way as what they used to be like. And the weird thing is that even in doing all of the things that normally get things back on track- drinking plenty of water, eating lots of fiber-rich foods, regular exercise, etc- it hasn't helped. To the point of being in physical discomfort on a regular basis.

So I'm going in to see a gastroenterologist next month. I'm curious what they will say. I'm assuming a colonoscopy is on the table, though I don't know if they will jump directly to that or try other approaches first. This is all new to me, man, so I have no idea what to expect.

For now I'll keep on keeping on, trying to rebalance my digestive system and get back to my happy place.

Oh yeah, and drinking my daily glass of MetaMucil, as per my doctor's suggestion.

Because I have the guts of a 70 year old, clearly

Veggie-saurus Rex

I have been a vegetarian for approximately four or five years now, though lately, I must admit, I've been a really lousy veggie-saurus. It's something I have been struggling with since September.

The kids started back to school, my school started shortly thereafter, the holidays snuck up on me, and pretty soon it was macaroni and cheese, pizza, and takeout. There have even been a few trips to McDonald's wedged in there. And today we had Taco Time for lunch....

I know!

It's terrible!

I fully understand how gross and unhealthy it is. I'm one of those people who try and hide their face as they go through the drive thru, and then hide the bags when I get home so my neighbors don't see them and judge me for eating crap.

I figure, if I'm that ashamed of it, I shouldn't be eating it right? Of course right.

But you know what, sometimes life with kids gets a little crazy. Add in full-time school and it gets even crazier. And so I go for what's easy. And what's easiest is usually absolute garbage.

Hence my predicament.

So I'm making a point to get back on the straight and narrow and start eating right again.

See, there are a few reasons why I quit eating meat to begin with.

First of all, because I was tired of feeling lousy all the time. I'd been sick for a few years, and when I cut out meat I suddenly started feeling much better. I had previously tried cutting out dairy, junk food, soda, and sugar, but to no avail. I cut out meat, and BAM, instantly better! Apparently I just don't digest it well?

The second reason is more personal.

Reader's digest version- my dad died of colon cancer when I was 16.

Colon cancer is genetic, but it is also affected largely by diet. In fact it is, to my knowledge, the only cancer that has been directly linked to diet- specifically red meat, processed meats, and anything charred.

So yeah, I probably need to get back on track. Partly so I go back to feeling better (definitely regretting that Taco Time), but mostly to cut my cancer risks and not have it floating around in the back of my mind.

I'm not going to live my life in fear and the 'what ifs', I totally agree with enjoying yourself (within reason).

But I also need to face reality and treat my body better so that I can be here for decades to come. My dad got sick when he was 40. I'm 29. I go in for the colonoscopy later on this year.

Time to put my big girl panties on and face it, methinks.