An Ounce Of Prevention

That's how I spent my Spring Break. I left school a week ago last Friday and headed straight to my doctor's office. We had this mutual agreement, my doctor and I, that we would try and keep it light. It was time for my fifty-year-old check under the hood. All the pieces were still there, though some of them had experienced a little more wear and tear than others. Eyes, ears, nose and throat were all doing pretty much what you'd expect. There were some smiles of approval for the low pulse rate: running four times a week. There was some tsking for the higher than normal blood pressure: family history and a fondness for cheeseburgers.
But there was no alarm. I looked to be in pretty good shape, with some advice on diet and sodium intake as the parting shot. I was inches from a clean getaway. "Say, have you had a colonoscopy?" I sat back down.
Well, no. I have not.
"Since you're over fifty," and I let the rest of the words trail off. I knew that the discussion was going to end with me making an appointment to have my insides poked and probed, and I wasn't going to like it. "You could get a flexible sigmoidoscopy instead. They don't have to put you out or anything," and again I let the idea bounce around my head. Was I really that interested in what my innards were up to?
Sure, I said, and right there we made the appointment for April First, the last day of my Spring Vacation. It would make a terrific bookend to this office visit. Besides, nothing says "April Fools Day" like a flexible sigmoidoscopy.
My wife has asked that I spare her and everybody else the details of the procedure, so feel free to look into it yourselves if you're curious. What I did take away from the experience was a sense of well-being that came in the form of being told by a medical professional that I was in good health. I savored that feeling for moments as I was finally able to turn away from the page of all the possible outcomes that were inherent with the test I had just undergone. I was told that I had five years to relax on this particular set of laurels, and then I would be tossed back into the name-your-scopy mix. In the meantime, I think I'll be looking into what the pound of cure is. Just because I want to know.