Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

Last evening I had a lengthy conversation with my Dad who is 87. He shared that the latest CAT scan found several new cancer spots in his liver and the Dr is hoping that the chemo will take care of these spots.

If only he had taken care of himself. A medic in WWII he always shyed away from visiting a Dr, or having any of us visit a Dr.

Then last spring some blood work indicated that some things were out-of-wack. His Dr of 15 yrs finally insisted that Dad have that colonoscopy that he had been avoiding. Almost as if avoiding a medical test would prevent some terrible medical illness, my Dad had avoided routine medical tests over the years.

Dad went in for the colonoscopy in July to learn that he had a 2″ tumor in his upper GI. Surgery in August removed the tumor, however it had metastasized across the GI wall, into the nodes along a section of the GI track, and as we learned a month later, metastasized to the liver. In early November Dad had 1/3 of his left liver removed and several tumors in the right liver ablated.

In January Dad returned to have 2 more tumors in his liver ablated. If only he had taken care to have a simple colonoscopy done every 5 or 10 years. I know it is a simple test since I have gone through one, and I will go through one again in 5 years. Not because they found something with me but because my Dad was found with something.

Colonoscopy; make sure your older family members have had their colonoscopy. It is a simple test, and it could save their lives, so that they can be a grandparent to your child. This is the last grandparent my boys have, the only grandparent that they even know. If only it wasn’t so.