Getting Older

I'm back, and it's time to address an issue that is staring me in the face like a rabid ferret:  aging.

Not aging in general this time, but the aspects of aging that involve medical testing.

I was watching a Bill Engvall performance video the other evening, and one of his routines had to do with having that oh-so-fun colonoscopy.  He joked about the laxative he had to take the day before, and how anyone who tried to use his bathroom got yelled out of the house.  He told about the IV that turned him into a wasted guy that got distracted by the movement of his own finger.  He had the audience laughing about the length of tube curled by the machine, and how he passed gas afterward like a bull elephant.  If you're wondering, yes, I laughed, too.  How could I not?  He was hilarious!  And yet, behind my laughter was the frightening aspect of the same procedure in my future.  It wasn't so funny at that point.

I'm nearly fifty, which means that the AARP is right around the corner (yay discounts!), but it also means that fun times involving prostate exams and colonoscopies are now on the medical schedule for me.  Every time I hear about these exams, I never fail to ask, "Shouldn't a modern technological society have come up with a better and less invasive way of conducting these exams?"

Imagine someone from 100 years ago getting a tour of a modern hospital:

"Here, sir, is where we can scan your brain without opening your skull!  It's a machine that can show us layers of your brain and where a problem may exist.  And here's something interesting!  This is called a gamma knife, and it allows us to operate without opening the skin.  And where we do open the skin, we have things like electro cauterization and the cell saver which minimizes the loss of blood in a patient.  Oh, and look at this!  This is a robot that allows doctors to operate safely down to the smallest and most delicate areas of the body!"

"Excuse me, Doctor, but what is that machine over there?"

"Oh, well that's a tube we stick up the patient's backside so we can look for things in the colon!"

"Barbarians!!!"

Seriously, though... Doesn't it seem odd that we can scan an active, living brain for damage without opening the skull, and we can't check a colon for polyps without sticking a tube into it?  With all of our technology, Doctor Squint has to still shove a fire hose up the chute to look for bumps?  When he finds some, will he shove leeches up there?

I know my loved ones want me to be healthy and live a long life.  I want that, too.  But when is a technology that gives us Google Glass, iPhones, and Double Stuf Oreos going to get going on a true benefit to mankind: the external scanner for colons?  Oh Steve Jobs, why did you have to be such an anti-medicine type?  Why couldn't we have an iScope?  It's not too late, Bill Gates.  While your foundation is offering money for people who come up with ways to solve the world's problems, how about a little cash in the direction of the male colon?

Don't get me started on prostate exams....