The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Why You Should Get a Colonoscopy and How to Prepare for It | BTS #38

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

In this episode I share some tips on preparing for one of those screening tools, the colonoscopy. SPOILER: It's not fun...but it's worth it.

Please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we'll get started with between the slides in 3, 2, 1. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among men and women combined in the United States. There will be an estimated 140,250 new cases of colorectal cancer in 2019. One in 20 people will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer. One in three people are not up to date with colorectal cancer screening. 60% of colorectal cancer deaths could be prevented with screening. 25% of people diagnosed with colorectal cancer have a family history. Know your cancer risk.

That's data posted on fightcolorectalcancer.org. I'm Kevin Pinnell, host of the Between the Slides podcast. Thanks for coming to episode 38, Why Should I Get a Colonoscopy? You may ask yourself, hmm, I thought this was incident management and project management best practices. But if you've listened to the show before, you know that we also sprinkle in health and wellness that really affects how we can do our job, whether it's in an office managing projects, supporting incident management teams in the field. And so I, as an alumni of the cancer survivor class of 2009, when I had my left partial nephrectomy for kidney cancer

and was an early candidate. I'm 45 years old. Typically, folks that are 50 and older are advised to get colonoscopies. I got the golden ticket and had one a little bit early. I'm glad I did. I'm glad I got screened. And so on this episode, I want to share for folks that are in that percentage of folks that have not or are behind their screening and also for folks that are in that percentage of folks that have not or are behind their screening, and also for folks that maybe have made the appointment and they're getting ready to go to their colonoscopy, and hope that this helps you get ready mentally and physically, because we all need to get out there and do some cancer screening. I'm sure everyone listening knows someone or maybe is someone that has survived cancer or that has died from cancer. It sucks. We don't like it. So let's do everything we can to take advantage of the medicine that we

have here in America. And if you're listening from other countries, wherever you are, hopefully you have access as well to screen and kill this cancer if you happen to have it as quickly as possible. So the first thing, we'll jump right into this between the slides five. So we'll use the kind of original format. And if you want to hear some earlier episodes, betweentheslides.com, we've got them all posted there, links to there, so you can subscribe on whatever platform, is to consult your primary care physician. So the first between the slides five of getting a colonoscopy for good colorectal cancer screening, talk to your primary care physician. If you don't have a primary care physician or PCP,

then I would advise you to get one or talk to a general medicine, family medicine, some physician that is trusted by your friends or family. And if you can get access to them and work with them and let them know. Part of that would be to know your family's cancer history, particularly if you have a history of colorectal cancer in your family but cancer at all to know that that might you know expedite you

getting a colonoscopy and again have that good conversation with your physician and make the time to do that and then if you're advised to get a colonoscopy don't put it off make the appointment set apart the time and do it you know This first step, this first between the slides five is no trade industry secret, but it's the one that probably most folks don't do. I happened to make this appointment because I set myself up for a physical. I hadn't had blood work and a general physical done

for a while, I'm 45. I'm kind of roughing my body with jujitsu and exercise. And so I said, you know what, I wanna see what my labs are, how I'm feeling. And so that's kind of what prompted me. So if you're out there and you haven't gotten a physical lately, don't think that you're too tough or too young or whatever. It's always good to check the numbers, see what our body's doing and listen to your body if you are having problems. So the second thing is, once you've made that appointment after you consulted your primary care physician, is to plan ahead for the week of your colonoscopy.

This overall process was kind of less than I thought it was from the procedural side, and then more than I thought it was from the prep side. And I'll get into details on that to hopefully help you all. I had, when I was a corpsman in the Navy working in the intensive care unit, had assisted in colonoscopies we did on patients that were in the bed many times. It was a good environment from the standpoint that the patients were already there. Many of them that we were doing colonoscopies on to look for maybe internal gastrointestinal bleeding or polyps or cancer or something else were already sedated or on medication or they were kind of in a captive environment. Mine was kind of same day surgery outpatient wise. So I

was there a total of a couple hours maybe between, you know, the early prep and afterwards. And I may be missing that a little bit, but it's not an all day affair when you're outpatient. So when you plan ahead, you definitely for the day of need to take work off. You will not be functional that day. You won't be able to think right because of the sedation that you get, rightfully so. And you're still going to be super tired. You need to plan for or cancel physical activities. So the day that, and that's the day before as well. So the prep day, and I'll get into that one, is no joke either.

But the day of, you're not going to be able to do anything. You're not going to exercise a few hours later. You shouldn't and can't really drive around because you've still got a good bit of narcotics in your system or whatever medications that they use. And like I mentioned, the preparation was a lot more than I expected, so it took a lot out of my body because you are fasting for 24 hours from the midnight before the day before so you're not eating at all. Plus you're going to take something that's going to make your system get rid of every single piece of nutrition that was in there. And so the prep is going to take a lot out of you.

You'll be tired. You'll be tired just from not having food and stuff. And I've fasted before briefly, but I've also kind of gotten snacks like handful of nuts here and there and then just drank a lot of water. But I wasn't taking the medication to expedite the exit of all that food, if you will. And with a prep for a colonoscopy, you do. So those nutrients aren't just sitting in your gut, helping you out. And so again, you're going to have tired and lethargy and you're actually going to start getting kind of some nausea and stuff. So the day before, you're also going to want to work to be at home at least the second half of the day because you're going to start your medication prep. Like I started at 11 with

some pills of Dulcolax. And then in the evening, you'll start a mixture of Gatorade and Miralax that really gets the flush going, we'll say. So really about a day and a half is what you're going to need from work for sure. And again, anything, exercise, classes, jiu-jitsu, whatever, you're just going to have to not do that. So the third thing is prep day is horrible. It's absolutely horrible. And not the hunger part wasn't as much. It's the early part of the day isn't bad because you've taken the pills that are starting to get things going, starting to break things up. Once that's really in high gear, however, and you get into drinking the Gatorade Miralax mix and that kicks in, it is ridiculous what it does to your system

you so early today you can tolerate you know having some broth which is great puts that great flavor and taste in your mouth it's like you've got food substance or something when you get toward the evening hours and you start drinking that Gatorade Miralax mix you really don't want anything else the Gatorade helps mask the taste a bit, but because your system is on hyperdrive 5000 of nothing needs to stay in here and it is just out, you just don't feel like having anything flavored then, you'll get some nausea. The bonus is in addition to sit down time, if you will, that is going to be very frequent and rapid, we'll say.

So shout out to the folks that know me that happen to be listening to this. So now we know each other a little bit better. You also will feel nauseous like you're going to get sick sometimes. So your whole system is just like, yep, we don't need any of this. Fortunately, I didn't get sick. I didn't throw up anyway. But my system was certainly very clear. The cleanse worked very, very well. And later in the day, so even when you go to bed, you know, you're throughout the evening, you're going to need to stay close to the bathroom, like very close. It's a whole different ballgame kind of trying to hold it and get to the toilet. And late in the day, you know, even going to bed, I went to bed really late. So I was

exhausted the next day. Cause you just have to keep going. Your system, it is just a flush of, you know, getting everything out and your body's just working close. So the biggest thing on prep day is you're going to have to just deal with that, deal with the feelings. And near the end of prep day, the night before you're going to have to maybe stay up a little bit later to make sure you're close to the bathroom. So you can kind bit later to make sure you're close to the bathroom so you can kind of get to sleep without having to rush and make it to the bathroom and there's really no getting away around it the benefit of doing the prep the right way though is that they'll get a better view in the colonoscopy it's the right thing to do so they can really get a

sense of how healthy you are or not so they can see everything in there or treat it if they need to. If you don't prep the right way, they won't be able to do it. So you will have wasted their time, your time, wasted that horrible day of prepping. So make sure you do the prep as prescribed. The fourth thing is practical as well is dress warm and chill out on the day of. So I say that so the day of you can't have anything at all. So at least, you out on the day of. So I say that. So the day of, you can't have anything at all. So at least the day before, you can still be drinking fluids up to midnight and whatever else. But the morning of or the day of, nothing.

So hopefully, I was lucky I had an early morning appointment at 10 a.m. and they were working fast, so I actually got to go in even earlier. But you can't have anything in my mouth. And so what I would advise to for the warm thing is wear sweatpants, whatever other comfortable pants or other warm clothes. If you're a shorts and t-shirts guy, that's fine. That's what I had on. I didn't realize how cold, I knew hospitals were cold, but the prep area is very cold and the procedure room is extremely cold.

Fortunately, the great people were either procedure done, had warming blankets or warm blankets rather. Warming blankets are those things that are hooked up to actually circulating warm stuff, but they were just blankets from a warmer, but made a huge difference. It felt great. You're exhausted already. You could be cranky because again, you didn't have your morning coffee. You haven't eaten anything for over 24 hours. And now you're cold because your system is just, you know, kind of taxed for not having anything in it. So wear something warm is what I would advise that would be helpful. And when you are waiting, you know, try not to let your mind wander too much. You know, what could go wrong?

And you're going to get the spiel, right? Here's all the things that could happen. Here's the percentage of times when the sedation goes wrong or when we could perforate your bowel like all these things you're going to hear them but colonoscopies happen so many times a day across the world let alone the united states the percentage of something bad happening because of the procedure is extremely low and i will tell you the reward for all the work that you've done for any nervousness that you have. And I had thoughts too thinking about what if this and that. And I've been, you know, my experiences, my flashbacks to times when I've been sedated and had procedures was the last two times where one is when I drove myself to the hospital because I had appendicitis. So that was a horrible thought.

And then the time before that is when I had kidney cancer. So if you're like me and you've had previous times where you were sedated and so your last thought was you're going to be put to sleep for some procedure that, you know, for something that's been causing you, you know, either extreme pain and sickness like appendicitis or, you know, something big and scary like cancer, then your next thought when you're going to be sedated again is not great. And so I had that similar thought. The great thing is that people were fantastic there, the doctors, the nurses, the nurse anesthetists. When you are in the procedure room and they start to give you the volume push to chill

you out, just chill and ride the wave. That is probably the best part of this whole thing is you will not care that you are getting that epidural. It will leave your fears. And then pretty immediately it is lights out. It's amazing. It still amazes me. And I've been around medicine for a while, how we figured out to shut down the human mind while keeping the body alive with chemicals and how it is just so instant. And then, you know, you're comfortable, you're chit-chatting, your lights out, then you wake up in the recovery room. It's just awesome.

So kudos to medicine and the practice of it and the chemical folks that figured all that out. So it's amazing. So that part, once you get there, is fantastic because you will not know what's happening. Again, you'll get a brief that there's one in however many thousand times someone kind of knows what's happening. But I knew nothing at all. I just woke up in the recovery room. And no pain afterwards. Just, you know, you're pretty loopy.

You're pretty chemical drunk still right afterwards, and then that wears off pretty quickly, but you're still just exhausted from your body. So the fifth thing is the evening of the procedure afterwards, and then the next day is just plan to rest all the rest of the day for sure. You are not going to want to feel like doing anything. You're going to be off a bit. One of the best post-procedure preps and things on the sheet, paperwork we actually got was don't make any big decisions in business

or anything else like that that day because your mind just won't be right. You get some pretty serious stuff there. But just chill out, have the clicker, take a nap, just do something, find something. And again, after the procedure, you're not driving home yourself. So part of that planning and number two planning for the week of is get a ride if you don't already have someone that can do that for you because you can't drive home at all and should not. And most places you probably can't wait there for eight hours until

you're a little more able and you're really not supposed to for a while after that. Don't shovel the food in also, I would say. You know, part of your mind goes, man, I haven't eaten for a while. I want to just stop my Burger King and this and that. And I did some, you know, Google food searching before I did this. And one of the tricks I didn't do that I wish I did for the prep day was like clear gummy bears, just sucking on those. Because that's a clear liquid and it will just dissolve. So that was jumping back a little bit. But back to this is I had like leftover noodles with some chicken on them from a Chinese restaurant and it was great. It wasn't too much. It was kind of

bland, but enough flavor. So to get some food in my belly and I'd had some ginger ale that I drank when I was at the hospital. So I'm sure wherever you have your colonoscopy scheduled for and completed, they'll have, you know, snacks for you as well. It's really good to get some food in your system. But again, go slow with that, have moderate portions, don't go crazy. That's part of the advice they'll give you. And I recommend that too. It worked well for me. So I can't really give a lessons learned because I shoveled a bunch of food in. I know that having a decent meal and then some snacks. I did sneak a couple Oreos in there after the

noodles, but didn't eat a ton of food right away. Your activity kind of is tolerated the day of, afterwards through the evening. Again, you won't really want to do anything. You can't. Your body is still tired. You're trying to get nutrients back in it. The medication's still, the half-life of it's maybe gone from the sedation part, but the other part of it, there's still some stuff in there and your body's just not quite on 100%. And then even the next day, so you'll feel it still. You'll still be a little tired waking up the next day. It was like I slept a lot, which I went to bed pretty early but you're again your body it's a pretty taxing experience throughout the

the few days or you know probably three days total that are impactful between the the prep day or the yeah the prep day the day of and the next day and so I was able to do you know some things the day afterwards I did a did a jujitsu class, but a light roll. So nothing crazy. And that was okay. So I hope this helps, you know, for folks that are thinking about it to, you know, those five things, consult your primary care physician, plan ahead for the week of, there's a lot that goes into this. Prep day is horrible. It's number three, there's no getting around it. When you're going there, dress warm and just try and relax. Ask questions if it helps. Just know that when it comes time to go in the room, very soon after you're in that room, you're not going to care at all and it's great.

Lastly, the evening of and the next day, just relax. Catch up on your Netflix and chill or whatever other platform and then really pay attention to how you're tolerating things how you're walking and talking and what you do so you don't jump back into it too much and end up back in the hospital from an accident or something

thank you very much for listening to this my personal recommendations there's tons more information out there on the American Cancer Society's website about colorectal cancer. There's the We Have Cancer podcast with Lee Silverstein. So I highly recommend listening to that if you're someone that already knows that you have a cancer diagnosis or it's in your family or you've been part of that. There's some good stories shared there. And that's one thing I'm going to do is connect with him and we're going to try and have an episode together as well. So don't let

pride or ego or this uncomfortable topic of colorectal cancer or any other cancer stop you from getting screened or maybe even prompting your family members from getting screened. Thank you all very much. We topped over 4,000 downloads this week, and it seems to be climbing more and more each episode. It's an interesting flow kind of from the first episodes, you know, the Incident Command System ones and some Gettysburg leadership, and of course my tips for helping other folks

pass the Project Management Professional exam seem to be the highest on the lists. So thank you all very much. It means a lot to me. I'm enjoying this and appreciate all that you all have done and I hope you all have a great day weekend evening Godspeed