Ok so this is one of those days that I would not wish on anyone. Ok, on only a very few people. It is colonoscopy prep day for me, arguably the least favorite medical procedure of my lifetime (so far). It will be my third time doing this, and no, it has not gotten less awful. "Its not the procedure, its the prep" is pretty much the truth of it. It is 12 miserable hours during which I cannot wander very far from a toilet. So why do it when there are alternatives?
Because colonoscopy is the Gold Standard for colorectal cancer screening. None of the alternatives approach it in accuracy or effectiveness, and none of them allow minor problems (aka polyps or biopsies) to be resolved at the same time, in the same procedure.
Excluding skin cancers, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosed in both men and women in the United States and the second highest cause of cancer deaths. About 152,000 cases are diagnosed every year. The rate of people being diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer each year has dropped overall since the mid-1980s, mainly because more people are getting screened and making lifestyle-related changes to lower their risk. From 2011 to 2019, incidence rates dropped by about 1% each year. But this downward trend is mostly in older adults. In people younger than 55 years of age, rates have been increasing by 1% to 2% a year since the mid-1990s. In 2024, colorectal cancers are expected to cause 53,010 deaths. As with many cancers, early detection greatly improves the odds of effective treatment. Found after the cancer has existed for a while, the odds of dying from it are brutally high.
I only have to do this every 5 to 10 years, so I will deal with it. No matter how much this sucks right now, it could be so very much worse.
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