Not for the Faint of Heart.
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
*So, I did something today that would probably disgust most
people. I took a medical test called Cologuard.
It is a less invasive form of a coloscopy where, instead of doing the
whole cleaning-out-of-the-colon in prep for the test, you take a stool sample
and get it sent off to the lab.
We all know that the preparation for a colonoscopy is worse
than the actual test. You drink the
gallon or so of prep liquid, wait a while and then spend an hour or so of your
life in the bathroom watching a few day’s worth of liquified food leave your
body in a hurry. Eventually, things run
out clear and you’re ready for the actual procedure. It’s really almost like an amusement park
ride, and if you think of it like that, it almost makes the prep process
tolerable. But maybe that’s just me.
This other procedure, however, is more ‘hand’s on’. They send you a little chamber pot, some kind
of preservative liquid and a plastic stick that is used to scrape off a little
sample of your sample. You set up the
little pot on your toilet seat with an enclosed plastic frame. You take care of business (the way you
normally would) capturing the number two (this is the industry standard term,
in canine nomenclature. Then, you take a
small scraping of the subject material with the plastic stick and place it in its
little sealable container. Finally, you
pour over the included preservative liquid over the precious sample and seal
the chamber pot. All the items go back
in the shipping box: zipped and sealed.
Then you just need to drop the box off at a shipping station (I wore sunglasses
and a fake mustache to not be recognized with the sample box).
If your test results come back positive, you can rest
assured that your colon is in fair and working order. If it comes back negative, or questionable in
any way, you will then most likely be referred for the gold standard
colonoscopy and all of its adventures. I
like to think positive thoughts in these circumstances. I’ve taken the worrying
route for a lot of my life but find that positive thoughts make for more
comfortable living. Good luck to you
with your test.
*Illustration courtesy of Cologuard.com
