General Chat

A free test which may save your life which you can do in the privacy of your own home - what's not to like?

I had prostate cancer which was picked up by chance before it had spread. If I'd had a test earlier then I'd have needed less radical treatment.

OH had no symptoms, but at 67 an annual test showed he had slight anemia. The doc decided he should have a full medical to see why ........... I think he might have had a hunch that something else was wrong.

The full medical included the stool test.

Sure enough, he had colorectal cancer.

He had to have 18" of his colon removed, but was lucky that he did not have to have either chemo or radiation.

BUT he does have to have regular colonoscopies ........... every 3 months at first, then 6 months, then every year, now every 2 years. The surgeon finds new polyps about every second or third time, and removes them.

He's fine now ............... although losing so much of his colon means that not as much water is re-absorbed from what passes through the colon, so he has very liquid stools, and sometimes little leaks.


The strange thing is that we were very aware that colon cancer ran in his family, so he had been watching for symptoms. His paternal grandmother died in the 1920s of it, his father died in the 1980s, OH survived. His sister ignored some symptoms and didn't go to the doctor until it was well advanced and died in 2014 after it had spread to the brain.

Our daughter and her 3 cousins were all under strict instructions to get a baseline colonoscopy at age 40. The 3 girls have done that, although a couple of them had to really pressure their GP to refer them, and will go back for other tests when they get closer to 50, unless they get symptoms. The youngest, a boy, has just turned 40 ............. and he had some symptoms 3 years ago that had them extremely worried that he might already have developed it, but turned out to something else that was benign. He'll be watching and testing.

AnninGlos Not online so much these days and stopped adding to fam history. Dont put much on here either unless of real interest. have a family group on FB so in touch with more of the family tho. Hard to believe how active GRU used to be. Stay safe

Well he has had a wake up call from me, I said I won’t support him and that he is being selfish by not taking the simple test so see how it goes from here, thank you all so much for your help in letting me rant.

My daughter has just told me that she has been for another colonoscopy ....... all clean and healthy and "come back in 5 years"

Glad that she is taking it seriously.

OH will be making an appointment for around June, it's 2 years since his last check-up.


Kick your OH in the butt, ZZzzz!!