Cancer screening and the cookie of the week 8/3/23-fudgy cocoa no bakes

Through the magic of podcasts, I discovered a British podcast called You, Me, and the Big C.

This was several years ago.

It was hosted by 3 women, two with breast cancer and 1 with colon cancer. The pod was about life with cancer, how to deal, how to get on with it. It won several awards. One of the presenters with breast cancer died, almost immediately after I found this podcast. It soldiered on with the now 2 women with cancer, and the widower of the third presented.

It was always life-affirming and wonderful to hear new podcasts.

You may remember last summer when Bowel Babe died. She was a Deborah James, an accidental influencer, teacher, pod-caster, wife, mother, and made a Dame by Prince William himself in her garden for her cancer fundraising.

I have always been a proponent of cancer screening. As soon as I turned 40, I scheduled my first mammogram and have gone every year. I knew I would do the same when I turned 50 and the colonoscopy.

Then they dropped the recommended age for screening colonoscopy to 45. During a pandemic. I will get on that, I promise.

Here’s the thing with cancer, it waits for no one. Grows quietly in the dark of ignorance.

After Spring Semester ended I scheduled my first screening colonoscopy. I didn’t care who would perform the procedure. My only caveat was that it had to be before Fall Semester started.

Guess what I have done for the last two days?

Yeah, prep and colonoscopy.

I always feel like I need to walk the walk, if I am going to talk the talk.

Truthfully, it wasn’t horrible. At least I got a nice propofol nap out of it. They do not lie, propofol burns when it is being injected. Most pain I had in the entire experience.

The screening was clear except for one bitty polyp that got removed. This means I don’t have to do it for another 7 years. Yay!

However, it is Cookie Thursday. Of Cookie Thursday is a Thing. You may have heard of it.

August is No Heat Month, where I don’t turn my oven on at all. Because it HOT.

I needed a cookie that is shelf stable because I made the batch on Wednesday. That didn’t involve the oven. Fudgy Cocoa No Bakes it was.

Any colonoscopy joke can sit on the side-line.

By decreasing the age of the first screening colonoscopy they are catching more cancers at an earlier stage.

At a more curable stage.

If you are above 45, ask your doctor today.