Bowel Screening!

Today I got a letter about a Bowel Screening.
I wondered why someone wanted to display a bowel on a screen and then I realised it wasn't anything like a Movie Screening.

I was quite thrilled actually.
Since I turned 50 last summer and entered my second half-century I had expected the National Health Service to be falling over themselves to offer me health screenings right, left, and centre.

So it was quite disappointing as the months rolled by and the NHS were conspicuous by their silence. Today then was quite a highlight, almost a relief really! The NHS do care about me, and they want to make sure that I am in the peak of health - well as healthy as it's possible to be for someone of my advanced years!

But it was rather a surprise to discover that the first part of me that they wanted to check was healthy was my bowels. With Scotland's reputation as the heart attack capital of Europe I rather thought they might have invited me for a heart screening. And I had thought that prostate cancer and testicular cancer might be higher priorties than screening for bowel cancer. But 'no', that's what this is all about. Apparently "all men and women between the ages of 50 and 74 will be invited for bowel screening every two years." (according to the NHS fact sheet enclosed with the Screening offer).

So it's not just me then. I don't know just how many 50 to 74-year-olds there are in Scotland, but at a guess it's about 25% of the population, which would be 1.5 million people. And we are to be screened every 2 years, so that means roughly 750,000 tests a year. That's a lot of tests!

I wondered briefly why I hadn't heard of anyone else taking part in this screening programme. But I guess it's not the sort of thing most people want to talk about. I mean, when you meet your friend at the bus stop, or round the shops, it wouldn't be the first item of conversation, would it! The fact sheet did contain a helpful phone number, for the Bowel Screening Centre Helpline. So if you're worried that no-one has invited you to have your Bowel Screened, you could try phoning 0800 0121 833 (only for my readers living in Scotland!).

Well, I can hardly wait to get started. I mean, I want to know the results, and pronto! But you can't hurry Mother Nature. The Screening will just have to wait until the time is right.

And in case you're worried - I don't anticipate returning to this subject again!