On Tuesday, I will give my local gastroenterologist the privilege of looking inside my entire large intestine. The exam is called a colonoscopy. Doc will be looking for inflamed tissue, abnormal growths, ulcers and bleeding. I'll also have an endoscopy which will let the good doctor look inside my digestive system from the other end. An endoscopy is a view of the esophagus, stomach and the first part of the small intestine.

No, there's nothing wrong with me (I hope). A colonoscopy is a routine exam that we're encouraged to have once we reach fifty--assuming there's no family history or symptoms that warrant an earlier checkup. The endoscopy has been added because after years of intermittent abdominal pain I was given the GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease) diagnosis several years ago after I went to the ER with constricting chest pain and discovered my heart was fine but my gut was unhappy. I learned I was one of more than 70 million Americans with a digestive disorder. Thanks to alterations in my diet (the lifestyle was already pretty good) I've had good relief but my doc still thinks a look-see is warranted.

Several years ago there was a lot of publicity about colon cancer when Katie Couric, anchor of NBC's Today show allowed the cameras in the diagnostic suite while she underwent her own colonoscopy screening. Couric's husband died from the disease that is ninety percent curable if detected early. That experience precipitated her pro-active stance that included warning us that colon cancer kills about 56,000 people every year.

I'm not proud that I've waited long past age fifty to get this screening. About ten years ago I had an extremely painful sigmoidoscopy which looks at the last part of the colon only. It was such a bad experience I said, "never again." Now doctors use powerful short term sedatives and pain medication that makes the procedure painless. In some cases the doctor will administer a short term anaesthetic.

When the doctor sees a polyp or an area that needs more evaluation s/he takes a biopsy and sends it to a pathology lab for analysis. Biopsies don't indicate that cancer is suspected; it is simply an important part of the colo-rectal cancer prevention scenario.

I'm assuming that everything will be normal and I'll be told that my clean bill of health means I don't have to repeat the exam for another ten years. Regardless, I tend to share my experiences with my readers so, stay tuned. In my case, no news is good news and next week I'll be writing about something else.