Come a little closer, and I'll tell you all about it. All right, maybe not all about it. After all, this is a family newspaper.

If courage is having done it before, I've mustered the temerity to tell you all about, in the words of humor columnist Dave Barry, having a complete stranger stick a 17,000-foot tube up my "behindular zone."

No, this was not at a public meeting, that's different (sort of).

I'm talking about having a colonoscopy.

I'm here to tell you that getting older is not for sissies. The prodding and probing into delicate personal areas of one's body increases with age, as do the indignities associated with such procedures.

That said, proper maintenance of a half-century-old body is much better than the alternative.

When you get past 50, you may as well get off to a good start and begin with getting a colonoscopy.

As with many folks, I put it off. Columnist Barry explained all my reasons for not having the procedure earlier: "1. You've been busy. 2. You don't have a history of cancer in your family. 3. You haven't noticed any problems."

Yet according to the World Health Organization, colon cancer is the fourth leading cause of death in the world, claiming 677,000 lives every year.

Yet it is easily survived if caught early -- and that's where a colonoscopy comes into the picture.

The WHO notes that about "one-third of the cancer burden could be decreased if cases were detected and treated early."

There are two components of early detection efforts: education and screening. I'm hoping this column will help with the education part of the program.

However, for the observing and screening ... well, you're on your own.

To select a doctor to perform the procedure, I interviewed a number of friends, all of whom begged me not to mention their names in print. (See online for their photos. Just kidding.)

Seems there is a cottage industry in Carroll County for performing colonoscopies, as I gathered almost as many names as folks I interviewed.

I decided upon Dr. Alfred Lee-Young because numerous folks told me that he was the "friendliest." Hey, if you're going to have someone check out your "behindular zone," you may as well have a friendly person do it.

Just as folks said, the preparation is worse than the procedure. It involves a good sense of humor, not eating any solid food for 24 hours and drinking a fruit flavored cocktail of nuclear goat spit developed by NASA.

Then you spend lots of time in the contemplation room, where you are allowed one phone call to warn the Westminster wastewater treatment plant to prepare itself.

The procedure itself was a piece of cake. Dr. Lee-Young hid the 17,000 feet of hose and one minute I was listening to music and the next thing I knew I was looking up at a smiling, kind wife.

I was delightfully knocked out for most of the procedure.

Barry said it best. Either you have colorectal cancer or you don't.

If you do, a colonoscopy will enable doctors to find it and do something about any potential problems. And if you don't have cancer, believe me, it's very reassuring to know you don't.

There is no sane reason for you not to have it done.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster. E-mail him at kdayhoff@carr.org.

user comments (0)