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BOOMER MEN & COLON CANCER

An Uncomfortable Truth

By Brent Green, Author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers

Chapter excerpt from Brent Greens forthcoming book:

THE BOOMER FUTUREHow Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging & the Future

Copyright 2009, Brent Green, All Rights Reserved

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BOOMER MEN & COLON CANCER

An Uncomfortable TruthBy Brent Green, Author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boom ers

his chapter is specifically for Boomer men.Women may proceed, but this is going tobe a large dose of guy talk.

For seven years, Mitch, my primary carephysician, told me just to do it. For seven years Iprocrastinated, coming up with every possibleexcuse to avoid following my doctors advice.

At the beginning of my eighth annual physicalexam with Mitch, he frowned at me and said,This is Dr. Gershten talking, not Mitch, do itbefore your next physical. No excuses.

It is the infamous test haunting those over50 called a colonoscopy: an uncomfortable truthabout cancer screening for those who have crossedthe half-century mark. This is not a test any JohnWayne-swaggering, red meat-eating, football-addled man wants to endure.

But I really appreciated Mitcher, Dr.Gershten, and preferred not to displease him.

Good family doctors are hard to find.So I made the momentous appointment with

a gastroenterologist. I accepted that I would besweating bullets for the next three weeks. Imanaged occasional hyperventilation attacks byimagining other unexpected people gettingcolonoscopies: Twiggy, The Rolling Stones (withMick singing I Cant Get No Satisfaction), theRockettes (simultaneously), and Alan Greenspan.This helped me with perspective.

Then came the fateful day before the fateful

day. After a light breakfast, I stopped off at thepharmacy where I picked up a prescription forHalfLytely with Flavor Packs. (Dont you agreethat this may be the Guinness World-Recordwinning euphemism for a laxative?)

A perky female pharmacist, about 25, tried tooffer me advice about how to use the product, butrecognizing her nubile, nymph-like lack ofpersonal experience with what would be

happening to me, I smiled gratuitously and backedaway.

The bowel prep kit includes a tablet laxative, atwo-liter jug filled with a clear medication andseveral packs of powdered flavoring weaklyreminiscent of Kool-Aid. Instructions directed meto take the tablet first and later to consume theentire jug of liquid, a glassful at a time in 10-minute intervals until everything moved swiftlythrough me. And shift it did. The very good newsis that I had my choice of flavor packs.

C-Day started with a cup of coffee and thenno more liquids until the procedure. Around noon,I sat in the reception area still wearing sunglasses. Itried to convince myself that I wore them toshelter my eyes from bright light, but my truemotivation was to avoid the possibility that anyonewould recognize me at this compromisingmoment, especially Twiggy.

After fifteen minutes of mindless scanning ofmagazine ads, a nurse appeared and invited me tojoin her. A red-headed Irish woman with a thickbrogue accent, she seemed antithetical to thesolemn activities ahead. Ill call her Nurse Bonny.She was an interesting combination of MaryPoppins and Maureen OHara, so I felt marginallysafer.

Bonny led me into a preparation area,subdivided into cubicles by drapes, where shechecked my blood pressure and asked basic

questions about drug allergies and potential healthrisks. I mentioned my theoretical aversion tocolonoscopies but received no deferment. I signedobligatory forms that would make a lawsuitfruitless.

She then exclaimed, Now, are we ready forour happy drugs? I could envision some upliftingpossibilities in the forthcoming diagnosticprocedure.

T

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Nurse Bonny asked me to remove my clothesbelow the waist, slip into a hospital gown, andthen sidle under a sheet covering the portablehospital bed. Then she left.

She appeared again momentarily, bright andenthusiastic, and covered me with another flannelsheet that had been warmed. My anxiety lifted with

these day-spa touches. She inserted a smallcatheter into my right hand where happy drugswould be injected.

All preparations finished, Bonny rolled mybed into an operating room where thegastroenterologist appeared from nowhere.Dressed in business casual attire, Dr. Troillut isuncomplicated and laid back. He explained whatwas about to happen and asked if I had questions.

Yes, two, I replied. Have you ever haddone to you what youre about to do to me?

He nodded affirmatively, Two times. Pieceof cake.Observing flat screen monitors suspended

over my head, I then asked, Do I have to watch?The doctor smiled and nodded at Bonny.

Bonny put a syringe into the catheter andbegan injecting the first drug.

Fentanyl is an opioid analygesic used foranesthesia. The product originates from poppies,those eye-catching orange flowers grown widely inAfghanistan,which our

federalgovernment hasbeenunsuccessfullycurtailing, yearsafter a war onindigenouspoppy growing.Derivatives ofpoppy plantsalso become either heroin or morphine, depending

on whos cooking the brew, respectively drugdealers or pharmaceutical companies. Morecomplex compounds originating from poppyopioids include Rush Limbaughs favorite pain-killing medication, Oxycotin.

As the drug rushed into my bloodstream, Ihad a few introspective moments. Then I lookedaround this strange room full of strangersattending to various duties and I heard myselfproclaiming, I LOVE you people!

Bonny inserted the second syringe into thecatheter and began injecting another liquid. Versedreduces anxiety and creates sleepiness. The medicalprofession refers to the effect as twilightanesthesia, meaning that you will be semi-conscious but in a dreamlike state. You canrespond to commands such as Roll your butt

over.This combination of drugs has another

positive side effect: short-term amnesiaRoughly twenty minutes after injection of the

second drug, I found myself sitting up in thehospital bed in a recovery area chugging a glass oforange juice and babbling, What a wonderfulworld it is! I had zero recall of the colonoscopy.

While Nurse Bonny and I enjoyed thistriumphant moment together, the doctor appearedwith good news: a cancer free GI tract. My mental

state had been perfectly attuned to hear suchheavenly news.Further, the doctor even gave me a thank-you

gift: color photographs of my colon, including onehandsome image of the intersection of my largeand small intestines, near my appendix. It didntoccur to me until later that the photograph servesas legal evidence that he did indeed guide thescope to the geographic location at which asuccessful procedure concludes.

So, heres a debriefing on typical anxietiesassociated with colonoscopies:

1) The purge. Although the tablet laxative andliquid HalfLytely are not a cause for jubilation, themedications are not horrific. You spend a littlemore time in the john, but before you know it,your GI track is as clear as the day you were born,which, if you think about it, is a historic occasion.

2) Getting half naked around strangers. The peoplewho do this for a living have found gracefulcompromise between total public humiliation anddiscreteness to the point of making the procedureimpossible.

3) The drugs. Really groovy. The only requisiteis that someone will need to drive you home sinceyoull still be enjoying residual meanderings ofpsycho-pharmaceutical consumption for a fewhours after your colonoscopy.

4) The colonoscope, a.k.a. the tube.It is thediameter of a pencil, not a fire hose, and you wontremember it anyway. Those blessed drugs again.

5) Bad news. True, this is a possibility, but oddsare extremely high for a negative test. Besides,

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successful treatment of precancerous conditionswhen found early rarely lead to worst-casescenarios. If your doctor discovers a polyp, hellremove it while youre still commiserating withTimothy Leary. Early screening usually meansnever getting colorectal cancer. Its much worsenews to learn of colon cancer because you

procrastinated, and I dont even want to writeabout the procedures youre then going to face.

Now for some sobering statistics for Boomermen, more than half of whom have passed thehalf-century milestone:

In 2000, only 42.5 percent of U.S. adults over50 had undergone colon screening within theprevious 10 years.1 That means 57.5 percent didnot do what all doctors and wise peers advise: getcolon screening, preferably a colonoscopy, whenyou turn 50.

Further, as many as 60 percent of deaths fromcolon cancer could have been prevented ifeveryone 50 and older would just submit to regularscreening. For most healthy adults, beginning atage 50, this means once every ten years.

Colorectal cancer is one of the mostcommonly diagnosed cancers in the U.S, and thethird most common form of cancer in men.2 Theaverage age for those who develop the disease is62, with two-thirds of the cases occurring after age50. In 2004, the last year for which the Center forDisease Control provides statistics, 73,007 men

were diagnosed with colorectal cancer; 26,881 mendied of the disease or its complications.3

Running the math, since 2004 I figure thatabout 64,500 red-blooded American males havedied prematurely. They are dust in the wind whenthey could have been reading this chapter instead,smugly self-satisfied over having submitted to theprocedure. They have joined an unenviable list ofluminaries succumbing to colon cancer such asMilton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Jack Lemmon, VinceLombardi, Tip ONeill, Charles Schulz, Joel Siegel,

Walter Matthau, and Tony Snow, the BushAdministration press secretary and fellow Boomer.

Get the test, Boomer men. The truth is: Itsnot that uncomfortable.

1

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/colorectal/statistics/screening_rates.ht

m2http://menshealth.about.com/od/cancer/a/Bowel_cancer.htm

3 http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/colorectal/statistics/

Strategic Implications: Men almost universally eschewpreventative diagnostic testing for diseases whencompared with women, with the colonoscopyranking at the top of procedures to avoid. Yet,disease statistics demonstrate the errors in theirways. The generation thats going to turn thisaround is of course the cohort of Boomer men.

Hopefully this chapter can help those who need tocommunicate with Boomer men and urge them toinitiate disease screenings can see that a good doseof humor, a small dab of humiliation and a pinchof fear can motivate men to see their doctors morefrequently for preventative care.

About the author:

Brent Green is a creativedirector, copywriter, author,professional speaker, and

consultant focused on the BabyBoomer generation. Author ofMarketing to Leading-Edge BabyBoomers: Perceptions, Principles,Practices, Predictions, Brent speaksand consults for organizations

focusing on the Boomer segment. His blog,http://boomers.typepad.com, addresses media,marketing and social issues affecting this generation.Brent Green & Associates, Inc. is an internationallyaward-winning marketing communication firm based inDenver. http://www.bgassociates.com, 303.743.0140

Chapter Copyright 2009, Brent Green & Associates, Inc.All rights reserved. For reprints, please contact Brent Green& Associates, Inc.