Bucks
Colonoscopy Michael Cassidy
Dear Friends,
Good
morning. Have you ever wondered how often you should have a colonoscopy? “If
you’re 50 years old or older, and have no family history, it should be done
every 10 years,” Dr. Michael Cassidy answered. Dr. Cassidy is one of a team of
six at Bux-Mont Gastroenterology (
“Colon cancer is the number two cancer killer,” Dr. Cassidy began. (Lung cancer is number one.) “And it affects men and women equally.”
Five percent of the American population will develop colo-rectal cancer each year, he told me. The colon, or large intestine, is five feet long. The rectum is six inches long. The colonoscopy procedure detects and removes polyps. Ten to 15 percent of his patients will have polyps resembling small warts. Dr. Cassidy found a few polyps in my colon and removed them. Fortunately, they were not cancerous.
Five years ago, my colonoscopy showed that my colon was clean as a whistle…no pun intended. But this time, Dr. Cassidy found polyps. So my next visit will be in three years, not 10.
“Very few of my patients, who have no symptoms, have polyps which are cancerous,” Dr. Cassidy continued. “The key is early detection. Most polyps are not cancerous, but if you let them grow, they can turn into cancers. Polyps don’t give symptoms. That’s the problem. It’s too late when you get symptoms because the polyps have turned cancerous already.”
The colonoscopy procedure is painless…patients are mildly sedated. I didn’t feel a thing. “No pain, no strain,” the affable Dr. Cassidy quipped. Most health insurance programs cover the cost.
The worst part is the preparation. The day before my procedure I took the two-step “prep” called starve and purge. I ate nothing for 12 hours but drank eight glasses (each, eight ounces) over an 80-minute period. The sweet tasting potion cleaned me out. The diarrhea, which followed, was definitely not fun. That was the “strain” part of it.
The cocktail is called “Halflytley Prep.” Depending upon how you pronounce it, is “Halflytley” one or two words? It gives very different connotations. I thought of James Bond, 007, as I read the instructions. “Fill the “Halflytely” bottle with luke warm drinking water and add flavor pack of choice, shake and refrigerate,” it read. “Didn’t James Bond instruct bartenders to mix martinis that way? “Shaken, not stirred!” There were five flavor choices but they didn’t add to the charm of this brew.
I asked Dr. Cassidy when will science invent a prep, which is not as uncomfortable?
“Who ever creates a better mousetrap will make a lot of money,” he replied.
Drs. Jerome Burke, William O’Toole, Ira Kelberman,
Daisy Ortiz, and Cassidy, plus Tracey McGinley, a nurse practitioner comprises
As I lay on a gurney prior to my procedure, I thought of two amusing stories. The first involved my uncle who was at medical school in the 1920’s. Students made rounds with all the medical disciplines at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. John Meredith loved to tell the story about the nickname which his fellow students gave to a famous proctologist at the time, Dr. Nathan Gabriel. Guess what the students called him…behind his back of course?
They called him the Arse Angel!
The second involved my Quakertown general practitioner, 20 years ago. Dr. Yung Sup Kim told me that an obese patient came to his office complaining about a pain in his bowel. Dr. Kim thought that a sigmoidoscope procedure would help in the diagnosis. A sigmoidoscope is a snake like instrument, which a physician administers without anesthesia in his office. The sigmoidoscope is not a complete colon exam. While it does not require a hospital-like setting and uses no anesthesia, it only examines the lower half of the colon.
The unhappy man dropped his trousers and bent over as my favorite doctor began to thread the sigmoidoscope into his rectum. Suddenly, the patient began to feel tremendous pressure and without warning, expelled the sigmoidoscope loudly.
POW!
The sigmoidoscope shot out of the patient’s behind and whistled past the startled Dr. Kim’s head. It hit one of his diplomas hanging on the opposite wall, shattering the glass. It must have caused an absolute panic!
Dr. Cassidy was amused with my story. Fortunately, he has a sense of humor. Several weeks after my colonoscopy, I visited Dr. Cassidy in his Sellersville office for this interview. “It’s nice to see you with your pants on,” he laughed.
“For sure,” I replied.
The moral
of the story is, don’t wait until you experience symptoms. Get your colon
checked out. For more info, call
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith