Hi, Daryl!  Awhile ago you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  I understand colonoscopies are a drag... a female friend
AH>  had one recently & told me she was hors de combat for three
AH>  days.  The alternative could be worse, however, if further
AH>  developments took place unchecked....  :-Q

DS>  A lady in Sherwood, Arkansas (northeast of Little Rock) was
DS>  diagnosed with colon cancer at 24...she died 6 weeks later.


          Uh-huh.  So it's not a disease affecting only overweight
middle-aged guys who love their meat & potatoes, contrary to popular
belief... [wry grin].



DS>  Another female was too embarrassed to tell the doctor she
DS>  had blood in her fecal stool. Nine months later, violent
DS>  abdominal pains sent her to the ER...only to find it was
DS>  stage 4 colon cancer. :(


          Reminds me of a neighbour of ours who died from a particularly
fast- growing variety of prostate cancer which then spread elsewhere.  He
was afraid he might have cancer, so he put off consulting his doctor about
it until there wasn't much anybody could do to help.  His wife blamed the
ER for not noticing he had bone cancer when he broke a couple of ribs as a
result of falling off a high shelf at work.  I felt saddened that neither
of them got the picture even though they lived in close proximity to the
home of the SURVIVOR echo....  :-(



DS>  While colon cancer is the second greatest killer behind
DS>  heart disease and breast cancer, if caught early, it's
DS>  easily treatable, with a 90% chance of survival.
DS>  Unfortunately, colon cancer, and many other forms of
DS>  cancer, in their early stages, have no symptoms at all.


          Because of your IBS, however, you are monitored at regular
intervals for such things.  It seems to me that every cloud has a silver
lining....  ;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+