Experts estimate that colonoscopy screenings save 30,000 deaths per year. That’s a lot. So this column serves as a reminder to check if you are due.
Two-thirds of older adults get regular colonoscopies. That’s a pretty encouraging statistic. But that leaves one-third at risk. That’s hundreds if not thousands of Mississippians who will needlessly die of colorectal cancer.
Like many Northsiders, I get my colonoscopy at GI Associates. Their facility on Lakeland is a well-oiled machine. I think of it as a colonoscopy factory.
This level of mechanized processing might turn some people off, but if it saves lives, which it does, I’m all for it.
Despite the massive processing of human colons, the individual assistants, nurses and doctors are friendly Mississippians and that makes all the difference in the world.
Kudos to the lady who announces the next patient in the huge waiting room. She belts out “Wyatt Emmerich, come on down!” as though you were the next contestant on a television game show. Each time she did this, the crowd couldn’t help but laugh, providing a nice comedic break. It’s people like that who make all the difference in the world.
Adding more of the home-town touch, my colonoscopy journey is a father-and-son experience. My last colonoscopy was done by Reed Hogan, a tennis buddy who has been pivotal in bringing about some great new investments in Belhaven. The elder Reed has retired, but I was warmly greeted in the procedure room by his son, who shares his father’s name. It’s stuff like this that makes me so glad to have been able to put down roots in Jackson and enjoy a true sense of place.
As I waited in the big waiting room, I pondered the nature of human existence and the dialectic between body and soul. I looked around at all the people: male and female, young and old, all types of body sizes and shapes. And every one with a colon about to be examined. How bizarre.
Yet each single person in that room is a fascinating, spiritual human being with a consciousness and life experiences that, if I had the time and opportunity, I would find interesting and rich beyond all measure.
Along those lines, this week in Sunday school at Covenant Presbyterian we discussed this same paradox. The brain is just a gooey blob that can be laid on a table and dissected. Yet it is somehow related to a human consciousness that is completely distinct from the glob of brain. And all the scientists in the world cannot explain how or why.
We are taught that the universe was spoken into existence by God. God’s consciousness created our physical reality, not the other way around. Similarly, our bodies are subservient to our consciousness, not the other way around. That’s why another thought, faith, can create everlasting life.
Consciousness is the driver of human existence, not our bodies.
But, in our own way, we are trapped in our bodies. Or at least our limited consciousness allows this to be so. And so we herd into the GI Associates waiting room to acknowledge the reality of our limitations and keep our physical existence going as long as we can.
GI Associates uses propofol. This anesthesia is widely known as one of the best. It received some notoriety as the drug that killed Michael Jackson when he was attempting to use it recreationally.
My running joke is that I bring a $100 bill to bribe the anesthetist to stretch out the propofol injection to give me a few minutes of the incredible propofol buzz. Instead, it burns for a second, then you feel intense pleasure for another second or two, and then you wake up in the recovery room.
It’s such a strange sensation to be out one second and awake the next second, even though an entire medical procedure has elapsed. The propofol leaves you with just a slight bit of grogginess. No problem for me working the rest of the day.
Dr. Hogan was scheduled to do 19 scopes that day, each about 20 minutes or so long. That’s some amazing efficiency. Some people can’t imagine doing that for a living, but I would derive satisfaction from saving lives, mastering a complicated technique and always having an opportunity to learn more about the unlimited intricacies and mystery of the human body. I bet the pay is pretty good to boot.
The worst part of the colonoscopy is the “prep,” but thank God I didn’t have to drink that horrid concoction that gets the process going. Instead, I had to swallow 12 big pills and drink 16 ounces of water over 30 minutes. Then do it again a few hours later.
It’s truly amazing how the pills work. I was determined to follow the procedures perfectly. The last thing I wanted to do is have to go back and do this again. Once every 1,825 days is enough for me. Like every aspect of a colonoscopy, the process is humbling, but we all need a good dose of humility every now and then.
Like before, Dr. Hogan snipped a couple of small polyps. Only one percent of these polyps would ever evolve into cancer, but you never know which one will. The polyps are part of my genetic makeup so I was sure to text my children and let them know.
My biggest complaint is the paperwork. Despite having spent 20 minutes on the phone two months before supplying every bit of my medical information, I was asked to manually fill out the same information three more times after I arrived. That just seems nuts. Why should I have to give them the same information four times?
Upon leaving, Dr. Hogan gave me a briefing complete with a report and images snapped by the probe’s camera. How strange to look at your own insides in living color. Is that really part of me?
In conclusion, I would like to give the colon its due praise. Unlike the mouth, which gets fresh product, the colon has to deal with the waste, yet it requires a scope once every five years versus the mouth which requires non-stop dental visits.
So here’s a toast to the humble workhorse of the human body: the magnificent colon!
