TMI !!! - an exception...

We live in an era of TMI - Too Much Information!

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.

A New Adventure

Preparations for the Adventure

An Adventures Exciting Ending - hahaha

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."

Ron and Jan

My friend will be walking into the church by himself this morning.

He will have many people around him, but the love of his life will not be by his side.

I want to be there to cry with him...
I want to hear the fond memories friends and family share of his wife...
I want to sing songs of faith and hope with other believers...

But the funeral service is in Denver.

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The bonds between believers in Jesus Christ are strong and last through the years. Ron and Jan were our dear friends the three years we lived in Denver. You know the kind. You didn't ask "Do you want to go out after church tonight?" You said, "where do you all want to go tonight?" I remember being in their backyard on the Fourth of July wrapped up in blankets watching fireworks. (There's something very wrong with needing a blanket in July, but that's a whole other story.) Ron is the one who taught me how to shift a standard drive jeep without using the clutch. We were young and away from home and family. Ron and Jan were exactly ten years older than us. They took us and our children in as family. They shared the love of Christ with us through great times and very difficult times.

We left Denver in 1989. We only saw them a few times in the twenty plus years since. Last year Jan had finished her chemo treatments and sorta felt like traveling. They headed to Florida and came through Nashville with their best friends Alan and Pat. We spent the day together - the six of us - and had a wonderful time. You would never have known over twenty years had gone by. Those kinds of relationships come from God's Spirit living inside and from shared lives - spending time together.

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This month is colon cancer awareness month. If Jan could offer a word of advice to us she would first want to know for sure that you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. She would probably then insist that if you are over 50 that you have a colonoscopy. Colon cancer, when detected early, is very easy to treat. When you notice symptoms it is too late. Jan had some symptoms. When she went to the doctor to see what was wrong she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. That was about two years ago. I'm sure she would tell you that the uncomfortable feelings you have when you think about that proceedure is nothing compared to what all she went through the last two years to try and treat her cancer.

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13.But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.


14.For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

15.For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

16.For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17.Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

18.Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Save Someone's Life - Maybe Your Own

A friend of mine is battling colon cancer. My doctor told me that colon cancer is a horrible disease. My friend has had chemo and radiation and surgeries to remove parts of her colon.

Her original prognosis was that she had no hope for survival - that she was at stage 4. God stepped in and she is cancer free right now, but she still has to go back for another round of chemo after a quick vacation.

The thing about colon cancer is that it is easy to detect and VERY easy to treat in the early stages. The problem is that no one wants to take the test. I've found that the test really isn't so bad. I blogged about it last year. If you or your friends are over 50 you need to read about my Big Adventure!

It's fun reading and might save someone's life - maybe your own.

A New Adventure
Preparations for the Adventure
The Adventure Continues
The Adventures Exciting Ending Hahaha - no pun intended