CANCER: Don't let it be a guy thing

A few months back I called my good friend and neighbor to invite him over for a cup of coffee. We’re both retired and join up for some coffee of a morning. This particular morning he informed me that he’d been throwing up and had diarrhea.

People encounter bouts of food poisoning far more often than they’re aware so I asked him what he’d had to eat. He said he’d had a hot dog at the race track the night before. I thought AHA!

I checked up on him later in the day. I walked right in to his house. That’s the kind of neighbors we are.

He was still in bed and in obvious distress. I told him I would bring over a bottle of the pink stuff that’s supposed to cure everything.

On my way back across the street I began to think. This just isn’t right. I’m going to get him to a doctor.

I enlisted the help of my wife. I thought my friend might argue with me but I knew he wouldn’t argue with my wife. Trust me. I know.

My friend offered no resistance. He was in that much pain.

I took my friend in to urgent care. They performed a blood test and took an X-ray. It was determined that he had a blockage in his colon and that he would need to go to the hospital ER.

There he was admitted. A cat scan was done that discovered a tennis ball-sized tumor that totally blocked his intestines. Surgery was performed the next day. A week in the hospital and he walked out with a bag taped to his side and the assurance from the doctors that they were pretty sure they removed all the cancer.

Eight weeks later it was determined that he had healed enough that the bag could be removed, the procedure reversed and he could resume using his own bowels.

My friend is recuperating apace but has one more hurdle. The doctors want him to undergo a six-month regimen of chemo just to insure that all the cancer is gone. We all know how hard chemo can be on one’s body.

All in all he’s quite fortunate that the cancer had not spread. If it had, for all intents, he’d have been a dead man walking.

It is almost a certainty that all this drama, pain and expense could have been avoided if my friend had gotten a colonoscopy 17 years ago as doctors recommend.

I have a mom and dad, wife and kids and a whole slew of family and friends who don’t want to see me suffer and die. I don’t want to die in such a way.

Guys, get over your squeamishness. For the ones you love and who love you, take care of yourself.

MARK JOHNSON

Coeur d’Alene