OK, so many of you probably didn't know this, but I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer on 6/25/12, the date of my very first colonoscopy. As it's my instinct to draw in, focus, and "man up" at times of crisis, I dealt with the diagnosis on the small scale, with family and a few close friends around here rather than making a lot of proclaimations about it. Since then, I've had, in order, 4 mos of chemotherapy, 6 weeks of radiation and more chemo, and just got out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center today, where I was for a week after having a good size chunk of my colon and rectal area removed. I've now got a temporary diverting ileostomy (which is f-ing WEIRD but necessary) until the end of June, at which time my year long journey will be complete.

Though there was no sign of cancer on the CAT scan prior to surgery, the doc recommended surgery just to be sure.  Good thing, because they found a very tiny bit of cancer on the chunk they took out (essentially the roots of the tumor) but no spread anywhere else, clean margins, and no sign in any of the 36 nearby lymph nodes. I stil have 5 years of colonoscopies and other scans ahead of me before I'm "officially cured", but the doc said "this went perfectly and there's a mid-high 90s% chance of long-term cure".

Moral of this story is GET YOUR DAMNED COLONOSCOPY. The reason colon cancer has such a high mortality rate is that you don't know it's there until it spreads. I lucked out because mine was distrupting my bowel movements and they wanted to go in and take a look early. If you are over 50 and haven't had a scope, DO IT. A day or two of discomfort beats the hell out of what I've gone through for the last year and definitely beats death.