You know when you’re getting older when the NHS starts calling you in for checks for all the big killers.
This week a box arrived for me. It is a home testing kit for bowel cancer. And, yes, you do need to do what you probably think is necessary.
Now, let me be completely clear from the outset, I welcome this sort of screening. I am not one of these people who prefer a ‘head in the sand’ approach to potential health catastrophe.
I want to nip anything dodgy in the bud. I want to have a decent chance of getting it sorted before it topples over the ‘too late’ line.
I’ve already asked at my GP surgery for a prostate test after repeatedly seeing folk on the TV urging those over 50 – which I am now comfortably a member of – saying it’s best to get checked.
My appetite for that test has, admittedly, increased greatly since a blood test replaced the old-school ‘finger’ examination.
However, I was told the blood test was prone to giving false readings and that I should only ask for one if I have symptoms. I’ll hope that’s not a conversation I’ll need to refer to at a later date.
But back to that bowel cancer home-testing box.
When the NHS first wrote to me about this – they give you a couple of week’s warning – my mind boggled at what it was likely to entail. I envisaged some bizarre balancing act as I tried to defecate into a test tube. A situation which would not be dignified for either myself or the test tube for that matter.
When I discussed it with my youngest son – now in his 20s – he thought the prospect of me having to pull off this feat was highly amusing. More so because he then pondered how such a sample would fare in the postal service. He had a point.
However, the reality is different to that I imagined; it’s potentially much more ‘involved’.
You have to catch something you’re passing into the toilet bowl before it hits the water – some tissue is recommended or a container (I’ll probably not use my lunchbox) – and then start conducting what will look like a scientific experiment on it.
By using a sample stick – like, but don’t think about this too hard as it will make you retch, those things they used to put in our mouths to check for Covid – you have to daub it in a bit of your excrement before (and it’s fair to say the pace I will conduct this bit of the process will best be described as ‘lightning fast’) sticking it in a small container.
There is a large illustration on the box which says, and I quote ‘we only need a little poo to test – please do not add extra’, next to an image of the ‘right amount’ compared to someone who looks like they’ve a whole spoonful of the stuff.
Their wish will, I assure you, be very much my command.
Once this is all complete, you stick it in an envelope – sample safely encased in the aforementioned sealed container – and mail it back to the poor laboratory whose job it is to probe the poo of middle-aged folk.
Even in a world where niche fetishes exist, I’m going to argue that no-one in the world would derive pleasure from that. Surely? And I’m certainly not going to try searching for it on Google. If I wore a hat it would be doffed in the direction of those working in that particular laboratory.
I make light of this acutely aware it is potentially lifesaving. But better to make light and do it, than ignore it. Plus, for those of you who haven’t reached your ‘autumnal’ years yet, forearmed is forewarned, as they say.
I would, once again for the avoidance of doubt, much rather be put through this minor inconvenience behind a locked bathroom door than give it a miss and hope for the best. I’d go as far as encouraging everyone to get over the potential awkward mechanics involved and play safe.
Well done, the NHS, for proactively seeking out those for whom further tests – and who knows, I could be among them – are required.
So while you’re enjoying your weekend, I will be trying to intercept some of my own waste – fresh from source, as they say. Wish me luck (and apologies if you’re reading this while eating a bar of chocolate).
