I feel really bad for your Father if that is how you treat him. Shame on you as his daughter for not being able to grasp how it is common for people to fear doctors..
More so for you males and dealing with prostates, colons etc... Don't judge the guy, help him.
You are sad.
Really? You don't know me and you don't know my father, but you feel justified in judging me based on one post? How dare you. I've explained the procedure to my father in full, I've assured him there's no pain and no weirdness involved. I went through every day of my mother's illness and death with him. I supported my mother, I continue to support my father. He watched me stand up at my mother's funeral and urge the 200 or so people in the room to have regular colonoscopies. I do understand how common fear of doctors is, but I do not understand how someone who has gone through the extremes of watching their closest loved one die of a horrible, preventable cancer can allow themselves to be held back by baseless fear. My father is not afraid of doctors. He goes regularly for blood pressure checks, regular physical exams required for participation in his hobby and temporary medical issues. Even after all my assurances, he will not have a colonoscopy. So, after all we went through with my mother, he doesn't seem to care if I might have to go through watching him die, when it is completely unnecessary. He worries about having a stroke and being incapacitated (strokes run on his side of the family) and gets necessary checks for those, but has no care at all about colon cancer. And you think I'm the one with issues? I love my father, but hate the fact that he is uninterested in securing his own health for his benefit or mine. And why? Because the doctor's going to put something up his butt. No, really, that's why he won't do it.
And do you honestly think I would abandon him? Or do you think, perhaps, I was venting my anger at his selfishness?
BTW, today would have been my mother's 70th birthday. But, due to preventable cancer, she's not here to celebrate. Do you think I should take it easy on my Dad and allow him to die the same way, so he won't be here to celebrate his next birthday? I assure you, I help him every single day and I try very hard to make him understand how important this is. He doesn't care. That's the kind of guy he is sometimes. My mother would have told you the same thing. I love him, but he can be impossible to live with.
Thanks for judging me so harshly for my frustrations with my father. I appreciate the understanding.
Two of the polys were pre-cancerous, so now I'm on a 3 year schedule, but the dr said had I waited until I was 50 for my first colonoscopy it would have almost certainly been bad news.
