People share their entire lives on blogs, FaceBook and Twitter (and yes, I'm a little bit guilty of that) and often share TMI. I started to give some examples and decided that would be TMI! haha. The boxers or briefs question of presidential candidates a few years ago is a mild example of the overflow of personal information that everyone seems more than willing to share now.
Because we are raising our children in this era of sharing-every-moment-of-life-through-social-media we are giving them the idea that nothing is private and that everything is worth talking about. This is part of what led to the young man jumping off the Washington bridge after his room mate shared a live feed of an encounter in his dorm room. (If you don't know this story I'm only sharing this piece of it so I am not guilty of TMI. Google it.) The boundaries of what is proper to share and what isn't have been blurred so much they are no longer recognizable.
There seems to be one exception to our TMI world. We don't like to talk about...
Let me start this way.
I attended a funeral last Saturday. It was annoying and made me a little bit angry. Not because I sang for the funeral or because it took a lot of the day - OK, most of the day - but because it was unnecessary. The guy was only 59 years old. Being in my 50s myself I find going to funerals of 50 somethings unnerving as well as annoying. The thing that irritated me about this was the fact that this funeral and the two years of suffering before it could have been avoided.
I've blogged about this before and now because of this man's suffering (two years of doctor visits and chemo and surgeries and treatments) and slow painful death I must blog again. The man died of colon cancer.
If you are afraid of TMI stop reading (but beware that you may die a slow, painful preventable death).
We don't like to talk about colon cancer because the simple preventative is yucky! It stinks. You have to have a colonoscopy. This involves drinking a year's supply of laxatives in one afternoon which ends up running everyone out of your house from the smell. Oooo! Lyndel!! TMI!!! Yes. It is TMI, but it's a lot less trouble and stink than what you will get if you have colon cancer.
Previous posts on this blog that I tried to make fun to read.
Ron and Jan (warning. this one is very sad)
If you are over 50 you should have a colonoscopy. No one wants to talk about them. Besides the preparation, you then have to have them put something ... hmmm, click on the link about the exciting ending and read for yourself what they do. I tried to make it enjoyable reading. hahaha. Anyway, I had one. They found a polyp. They cut it off. Polyps turn into cancer. Now I have to have another one five years after the first one rather than ten years after. That's OK. That is an EASY treatment. One uncomfortable afternoon. A procedure you get to sleep through and maybe a snip of a polyp. EASY! and not really TMI. I have seen enough friends and others suffer long painful deaths that could have been treated with a snip if they had found a polyp rather than stage 4 colon cancer. You don't get symptoms until it has progressed that far.
So, if you're still with me, if you're over 50 and have never had a colonoscopy, call your doctor today. I don't want to sing at your funeral any time soon. If you are under 50 put an alarm on your smart phone to go off on the day after your 50th birthday (you don't want to mess up your birthday party) and label it "call dr about colonoscopy."
1 comment:
People need to know about the seriousness of this issue. Hopefully, you will reach some that have been avoiding the issue.
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