Financially, not literally. Sorry about the clickbait headline, but it’s for a good cause to get your attention to talk about cancer. We just had World Cancer Awareness Day on the 4th of February. I was certainly aware of my cancer when my dermatologist cut out a big chunk of my back fat to keep a melanoma from spreading where it shouldn’t spread. Get checked regularly for cancer.
That’s one reason I reluctantly agreed to finally get a colonoscopy recently. The other reason is that I could make some money in the process. I was accepted into a clinical trial for a blood sample test to replace colonoscopies. My colonoscopy would be free thanks to good insurance, while the clinical trial would line my pockets with a couple hundred bucks. And then I got the bill …
It turns out that while the colonoscopy was free, the biopsy to determine if the polyps they removed were benign or malignant was not free.
Note to Self: Benign Polyps would be a good name for an indie band, while Malignant Polyps would be a great moniker for a punk band.
I was being financially penalized for potentially having cancer. That’s cancerism! All my clinical trial cash was wiped out, and I didn’t even get the 2 adorable polyps returned to me to proudly display on my fireplace mantle. Fortunately, I stumbled upon some other clinical trial that requires me to report online daily and weekly as to whether or not I am sick and send in some nasal swabs when they tell me. They even show my earning progress online.
I’m not exactly sure what the trial is for. Maybe they are using my snots to clone me. That’s fine. Just more of me for the world to love. All I know for sure is that the more I report and swab the inside of my nose, the more I earn. If only I could do that full-time as my job, I would swab until my nose bled.
The best news of all is that my charming polyps were determined to be benign. If you’re late for a cancer check-up of any kind, now is a good time to plan an appointment to get checked out. I don’t regret getting my overdue colonoscopy. I do regret not taking my polyps home with me. How could anyone even consider such cuties to be cancerous?
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 