Giving Meaning to March

First things first. I need to apologize to my faithful readers – both of you – for the total lack of Inside the Bubble columns. 

I would like to offer you a good reason, a good excuse for the recent  ITB drought. Instead, all I can tell you is my dog ate my laptop.  Also, my vowels were at the cleaners and I misplaced the claim ticket. I'm sure you will agree the quality of any column drops drastically without vowel usage. Thank you for your understanding.

Okay, a lot has happened since the last column, the biggest being that February has turned into March. And March 2012 is suffering from delusions of grandeur.  For reasons beyond logic, March now thinks it is a summer month.  While no one is complaining, the wise among us know somehow this all equals out.  Expect snow in June.

March has suffered from an identity crisis since the first Julian calendar. It is generally a throw-away month. No one has ever said anything poetic about March. Not ever. Generally people swear at March and then go to Florida.

Sure, March has the Equinox, but that just has never accepted as “cool” by the In Crowd. Occasionally, March will steal Easter from April – but we all pretty much disapprove of such thievery. It is confusing. 

So now March 2012 is stealing June’s weather.  Who can blame March, as it is usually associated with slush and mud. It will not take. These 70 degree days, while pleasant, are a desperate plea for attention. Poor, poor March.

But it turns out March does own something no other month can claim. March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month.

I know – I was initially surprised, too. 

Who could possibly imagine that the fairly popular punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots would even be prone to any type of illness – let alone cancer? I can see the semi colon being susceptible, but the sturdy colon? It just does not make any sense. 

So, like any high school student having to do a research paper, I went to Wikipedia and began to copy and paste.

As it turns out, I am glad I did not Google ‘images.’ 

This has nothing to do with the two stacked dots used after a complete sentence to introduce a list of items. No, friends, this is the other colon – the one of lower digestive tract fame. It does explain the lack of t-shirt sales.

However, as I am coming close in age to that number of which Sammy Haggar can’t drive, I was compelled to continue the investigation. 

I went to my physician for my annual physical, which I do like clockwork every decade or so. Trying to be cool, which pretty much defines my life since puberty, I said to my doctor, “Hey Doc, so March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Does Hallmark have a card for that?”

Doc was fairly certain Hallmark does not have a NCCAM card and was completely certain that at age 54, I am way overdue for a colonoscopy.  Being a virgin to this sort of thing, I probed (pun slightly intended) further, asking my doctor what exactly takes place during a colonoscopy.   

It does turn the Ides of March to the Yikes of March. 

And honestly, shouldn’t this kind of activity at least be preceded by several glasses of red wine, an observation of how pretty I am AND a good long talk about my feelings?  My doctor patted me on the head, told me to put my pants back on ,(after all, we were in the Waiting Room), and made an appointment for me to see a G.I.

So, I will soon join the Colonoscopy Club.  However, if you see me walking funny, I am going to claim Horseback Riding as the cause.

Meanwhile, join me. Perhaps we could double up at my appointment, or –better yet – you could make an appointment of your own.  Fun Fact: If everyone who is 50 years old or older were screened regularly, as many as 60% of deaths from this cancer would be avoided.  Cool, right?

And if you have a little blood in your stool, are suffering with stomach pains and cramps and / or are losing weight for no good reason, do not walk the Colonoscopy Clinic.

Run.

Learn more at:  http://www.cdc.gov/features/colorectalawareness/

Take that, polyps.