Your Butt is Totally Unremarkable
Why embarrassment should never stop you from getting a colonoscopy.
March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. So, we’re going to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming (the 4 part series on low libido) so I can beg, plead, ahem, remind you to get your screening colonoscopy.
Last year I shared how I had two precancerous polyps removed during my screening colonoscopy, and my sister had nine highly precancerous polyps removed during hers, despite both of us living super healthy lifestyles and having no risk factors.
In that post I share the different options for colorectal cancer screening, several of which are convenient and easy. So if you’re curious - click over to that post to read about your options.
This year, I want to focus on something I don’t see many people talking about, but I know keeps some people from scheduling their routine colonoscopy: the embarrassment of having someone stick a camera up your butt.
But first, a funny story:
My husband is a doctor, and it’s rare for me to have any anonymity within the health system he works for. Our last name is unusual, and I am often asked if I’m related to Dr. Mudrick. It’s not uncommon for these conversations to happen when I’m partially clothed, feeling vulnerable and would love nothing more than to be forgotten as soon as I leave the appointment.
So anyway, a few years ago I turned 45 and scheduled my first colonoscopy. And then I had to reschedule it … and then reschedule it again. At this point I felt like I was tempting fate by postponing the procedure multiple times, so that third time I opted for the soonest appointment anywhere in the Columbus metro area. Which is how I ended up getting my colonoscopy in a far reaching suburb about 40 minutes from my house.
So imagine my surprise when the randomly assigned gastroenterologist walks in to say hello before my procedure, and he and my husband both do a doubletake, followed by a bunch of warm exclamations and “It’s been so long!” and “I had no idea you lived here!”.
The guy who was just about to put a camera up my butt was one of my husband’s friends from residency in Boston. They had worked and trained together for three years, lost track of each other as they pursued different specialties and then both randomly ended up in Ohio working for the same health system.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS???
But also, of course.
Sigh.
But here’s why it didn’t matter: I knew this guy had seen thousands of rear ends before seeing mine, and would go on to see thousands more in the years after. I took comfort in knowing that my butt was in no way remarkable to my doctor because he had seen it all by that point. Seriously.
So if shame or embarrassment is keeping you from scheduling your routine colonoscopy, it’s totally unnecessary. Your GI doc isn’t judging you or grossed out by what they find - if they were they would have picked a different specialty.
Trust me when I say they’ve seen bigger butts, flabbier butts, dimplier butts, smellier butts, hairier butts, bonier butts, wrinklier butts, and so on. They. Have. Seen. It. All.
And to them, your butt is totally and completely unremarkable. Truly! Which means you can stop feeling self conscious and get the procedure scheduled. Okay? Okay.
Still not convinced? Follow my friend Laurie’s advice and dedicate the effort to your loved ones:
“Life is short. It’s fragile and precious and hard and there really isn’t much in this life you can control. So why not take advantage of the little things you can control to try to make your life as rich, meaningful and long as possible? It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things that could literally save your life. I can promise any discomfort you experience would be a drop in the ocean of how cancer can upend your life - and not just for you, but for all of your loved ones as well. If nothing else, do it for them.”
Get screened for yourself, for your loved ones, or in honor of Laurie who would have loved nothing more than to have a few precancerous polyps removed before moving on with her life. Whatever your inspiration, please just get screened.
XO, Rebecca
P.S. Absolutely making this salad.