My oncologist, old, fat, and not that bright (Must have graduated at the bottom of her class and paid someone off when she got her grade for colon cancer studies) overruled a young female doctor, fresher from med school who said it was “imperative” that I get the later test and an endoscopy too. My oncologist pushed for one test only because she thought I had an ulcer (I exercise, lift weights, jog, eat well) and when that test showed I didn’t have an ulcer, somehow she still got her way with the hospital and overruled for the colonoscopy. She sent me home with iron pills. Two months later a grapefruit sized tumo was creating great pain in my abomen, found a “Large mass” on the CT scan, turned out to be colon cancer stage two. I was operated on last March and told that with type II colon cancer 1 out of 3 don’t make it five years. One year is almost gone and the anemia doesn’t seem to have improved much. (Although I can ride my bike fast for an hour and keep up with those who don’t have anemia)

A woman I met from around the time of my operation had stage four colon cancer. She thought – postive thinking – and doc notes too, that her stage four had gone away with surgery and chemo, but, she found it was back a few days ago, and was operated on it again today. She is a good person and … that’s that. Stage four is bad news and when you have stage two, if it comes back, it’s not back as stage two or three, it’s stage four. You don’t want either one and with a colonoscopy you have a chance to stop it before it gets going. It’s not a rare disease.

I have found from some research, not enough, that colonoscopies miss cancer sometimes. They have known since 1998 they can easily miss in the cecum area where mine was eventually found.

A friend, two days ago I ran into him, said “I finally took your advice and got the colonoscopy and they found polyps.” When they find polyps they snip them out, you wake and don’t remember a thing. If they miss the polyps they can grow into cancer. You don’t want that. My twin sister, 300 lbs won’t get tested because, well, if you were that big you wouldn’t want to strip down in front of others either… but if she can’t handle that I am pretty damn sure she can’t handle it if she also gets colon cancer. Over weight, inactive, over 6O and a relative with cancer, she is high risk.

So, as cops say, be careful out there – and I would add, get tested.

Steven D.

PS I have an article at the Mendocino Country Resource Center online, about a free fly fishing program called ReelRecovery for men who have cancer or who are cancer survivors. It’s a national prorgram, many locations, I wrote an article about it and shot photos too (except for the last photo of me with my fish) I highly recommend that you get that info because if not now, later, you will run into a man with cancer and this is a great program. So Google Mendocino Caner Resource Center, click on Reel Recovery, see article by Steve DeLuca, read about the program and see the photos, and file it away. I can’t imagine any man not enjoying the program, even if they don’t like fishing. SD

(For my prior review of research on HGH, please see: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1102/gezunt111502.asp)

While supplementation of declining anabolic hormones in older women and men can certainly reverse some of the direct physiological effects that are associated with the loss of their biological functions, aging and senescence result from many complex biological causes, and at this time, I don’t see any “magic bullets,” in the form of hormone replacement or substitution, available to globally reverse the effects of aging (and all of these hormone supplements have been associated with clinically significant side effects when given at doses that are biologically effective).

Hope this helps/ RAW