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[Kathy Hall, Member Kaiser Permanente Colorado]
- I had been doing screenings for colon cancer
for probably eight to 10 years
and never had a problem
so when I got a letter from Kaiser
telling me that they wanted me to have a colonoscopy,
I thought, "Oh not me."
(laughs)
I thought well let's do more tests,
let's do this,
anything but doing the colonoscopy.
- Most of the patients I find
when you tell them this
and you tell them that the preparation is the worst part,
that the procedure itself is relatively easy
and painless to go through,
they seem to really respond to that.
- I was never uncomfortable.
I was never too tired
or any of those things
that you hear about it.
When it was done
and he sent me a letter saying
that they did find some polyps,
I wrote him back
and I said I wanted to thank Dr. Wagonlander
for spending a little bit more time with me
and convincing me that I should do this
for my health.
It didn't seem like it was that big of a thing.
I had no pain.
I had no discomfort.
I'd never saw anything.
- Karen was a great example
and I have many members that I treat here at Kaiser
that do get their routine screenings
and we are able to detect
these precancerous lesions
and are able even to prevent them from growing in to cancer
and having to go through surgery
or more advanced procedures
that are way more painful
and take a lot longer to recover from.
Since a colonoscopy is so easy,
you recover after one day.
It's very, it's a very simple procedure
and it's easiest to take care of it at its beginning stages
than wait until more advanced stages.
- I was very, very overwhelmed
that I possibly saved my life.
I have many more things I want to do at 70.
Lots of them.
More cruises, more trips to Mexico,
things with our family,
my husband and I, we've been married for 50 years.
We've been high school sweethearts
so we, there's nothing that we haven't done together,
if you would
and we just have a lot of things we want to do.