The Bowel and The Pussycat

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Bum.

I think I'm a pretty typical guy of a certain age.

I love my family, and watching sport. I enjoy a pint, and a good curry. I've got lots of friends I've known for years, and some I've only just met. I love to travel, but I love to stay at home too.

And I don't like medical tests. Hate them.

It's not that I'm scared or anything. Well, not as in really scared. I'm just, you know, a bit of a pussycat.

Because tests mean results, and results might mean something wrong. And something wrong means illness. And illness means, potentially - well, let's not go there.

So imagine my joy when on my fiftieth birthday, in among my cards and presents, I found a special "Happy Birthday" from NHS Scotland. A little padded pack, which made me think "Ooh, that's nice. A present from my doctor".

"Dear Mr. Harris" it said. "Now you are fifty, we would like to present you with this wee Bowel Screening Kit".

It went on. "Please take a sample of your poo and send it to us so that we can confirm your darkest fears". It may not have said exactly that - I'm paraphrasing a bit.

I did exactly what I always do. The wrong thing.

I looked at the pack, read the instructions carefully, and put it in a drawer.

Every now and again I took it out, looked at it again - and put it back in the drawer. For over a year. Well, I told you - I don't like medical tests.

You see, it wasn't really convenient. Not for a man like me - I have things to do, places to go, people to see.

I'd have to plan, and think, and synchronise my poo-sampling with all the other important things in my life, like having meetings, speaking at conferences, listening to the radio, taking trains and watching re-runs of "Friends".

Before I knew it, I'd forgotten about it altogether.

Then last autumn, at a conference, I saw someone make a presentation on the success of a Bowel Screening Campaign in Glasgow. She said that more than 37,500 men and women are diagnosed with Bowel Cancer in the UK every year - it's the second most commonly diagnosed cancer. She talked about how the vast majority of cases are among those who have passed their 50th birthday.

And she told us that Bowel Cancer, if caught early, is 90% treatable with total success.

So when another test kit arrived through the door the following week (another birthday - they come along so quickly these days, don't you think?) I did what I should have done the first time. I decided to take the test, and to stop acting like, well, the thing I was about to take samples from.

The way the test works is that they give you a little pack of, er, lollipop stick things. You stick these into different areas of your poo (I apologise. This is as elegant as I can make it). Then you post the samples, in a very, very well-sealed pack off to the Bowel Cancer Screening Centre.

Mailing my poo was the part I found most strange, having never before sent my poo through the post to anyone.

Well, not if you don't count Piers Morgan.

You get the results back within two weeks, and for the vast majority of people it's an all-clear.

Not for me, though.

I received a letter telling me that the test had shown "hidden blood" - a possible sign of Bowel Cancer.

See? That's why I don't like medical tests.

With the letter was another sampling kit. This time, I completed it in double quick time. I'm sure you would too. And off it went.

This time the results came in a phone call. My daughter Ellen answered the phone and said "Dad, there's a really nice woman on the phone for you".

Which made me think that either I've won a free conservatory because they're in my area, or I've got cancer.

It was neither, but closest to the latter.

The second test had confirmed what was indicated in the first - there was hidden blood in this sample too.

So a week or so later, after a Sunday spent mostly on the loo (thanks to a strange fizzy concoction called Picolax) I presented myself at Edinburgh's Western Infirmary for a Colonoscopy.

This "procedure" involves a doctor inserting a thin tube, with a camera inside it, into your back passage.

Or "Up your jacksie for a shufti", as my dad would have put it.

Don't worry, the camera is very, very small.

I wish the same could have been said for the camera man.

Joking. I'm only joking.

The anaesthesia let me sleep through the whole thing. Just as well, really, because it avoided the unpleasant experience of me lying half naked on my side with a tube up my you know what, trying to make the doctor and nurses laugh.

I got the results almost immediately.

All clear.

The happiest words in the world.

All clear.

The doctor said a bit more than "all clear", of course. Like how I would be sent further tests in the future, and that I should take them (no argument from me). And that if I had any worries or symptoms I should see my GP. Agreed.

I think he then told me that I have one of the clearest bottoms in Edinburgh, but that might have been the after-effects of the anaesthesia.

Of course, I was delighted. More than delighted. relieved. Delirious. And quite weepy.

My wife was delighted too. And Diane, I promise to make it up to you next Valentine's Day. (Oh, did I mention that my colonoscopy took place on Valentine's Day? No? Ah. Happy Valentine's Day, darling).

But here's the point.

Even if the colonoscopy had confirmed "bad news", the chances are high that it would have been caught, dealt with there and then, and treated.

With total success.

That's why, if the test comes through your door, you should take it. No, you MUST take it.

Not just to check that you're clear. But because if you're not, they can treat it.

If you take the test, and any trace of early stage cancer is found, it is treatable. If you don't take the test, it might develop into something that isn't treatable. It might be too late.

Please. If you're fifty or over, take the test. If you know anyone over fifty - a parent, a partner, or a pal - please nag them to take the test.

Yes, medical tests are a pain in the arse. But not as big a pain in the arse as Bowel Cancer.

(April is Bowel Cancer Awareness month in the UK. However I have no association with that. Incidentally, your local health authority can give you much, much more information about why screening is so important, and so successful. They'll have a website, or a phone helpline. The one for my area is NHS Scotland, which is here: NHS Scotland Bowel Screening )