Another Colonoscopy Monday and Colonoscopy Jokes

I need a good plan to suprise my doctor Friday...any suggestions? Anyways, here are some funny colonoscopy jokes below (i have printed them before I know)

A physician claims these are actual comments from his patients made while he was performing colonoscopies:
1. "Take it easy, Doc, you're boldly going where no man has gone before."
2. "Find Amelia Earhart yet?"
3. "Can you hear me NOW?"
4. "Oh boy, that was sphincterrific!"
5. "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"
6. "You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married."
7. "Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?"
8. "You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out. You do the Hokey Pokey ..."
9. "Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!"
10."If your hand doesn't fit, you must acquit!"
11. "Hey, Doc, let me know if you find my dignity."
12. "You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?"
13. "Could you write me a note for my wife, saying that my head is not, in fact, up there?"

Gotta love a good "colonoscopy joke". In fact, I love cononoscopy jokes so share em if you got em! Tell your colonoscopy joke bt entering a comment.

Phenoemnal Article on Autoimmune Disease and Crohn's

Excerpted from The Autoimmune Epidemic: Bodies Gone Haywire in a World Out of Balance--and the Cutting-Edge Science that Promises Hope (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster). To read the entire article, check here.

Most of us, at some juncture in our lives, have played out in our minds how devastating it would be to have our doctor hand down a cancer diagnosis or to warn us that we are at risk for a heart attack or stroke. Magazine articles, television dramas, and news headlines all bring such images home.

But consider an equally devastating health crisis scenario, one that you rarely hear spoken about openly, one that receives almost no media attention.
Imagine the slow, creeping escalation of seemingly amorphous symptoms: a tingling in the arms and fingers, the sudden appearance of a speckled rash across the face, the strange muscle weakness in the legs when climbing stairs, the fiery joints that emerge out of nowhere -- any and all of which can signal the onset of a wide range of life-altering and often debilitating autoimmune diseases.

Imagine, if you can: the tingling foot and ankle that turns out to be the beginning of the slow paralysis of multiple sclerosis. Four hundred thousand patients. Excruciating joint pain and inflammation, skin rashes, and never-ending flu-like symptoms that lead to the diagnosis of lupus. One and a half million more. Relentless bouts of vertigo -- the hallmark of Ménière's. Seven out of every one thousand Americans. Severe abdominal pain, bleeding rectal fissures, uncontrollable diarrhea, and chronic intestinal inflammation that define Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease. More than 1 million Americans.

More than 2 million patients. Dry mouth so persistent eight glasses of water a day won't soothe the parched throat and tongue and the mysterious swallowing difficulties that are the first signs of Sjögren's. Four million Americans. And, with almost every autoimmune disease, intolerable, life-altering bouts of exhaustion. If fatigue were a sound made manifest by the 23.5 million people with autoimmune disease in America, the roar across this country would be more deafening than that of the return of the seventeen-year locusts.

And yet, despite the prevalence of autoimmune disease, surveys show that more than 90 percent of people cannot summon the name of a single autoimmune disease when asked to name one specifically.

Think of it -- other than walkathons for multiple sclerosis, how many fundraising walks or lapel ribbons have you seen for autoimmune disease in general? Nearly 24 million Americans are suffering from an autoimmune illness, yet nine out of ten Americans cannot name a single one of these diseases. It boggles the mind.

Each of these nearly 100 autoimmune diseases derails lives. Taken collectively, these diseases, which also include type 1 diabetes, Graves' disease, vasculitis, myasthenia gravis, connective tissue diseases, autoimmune Addison's disease, vitiligo, rheumatoid arthritis, hemolytic anemia, celiac disease, and scleroderma are now the Number Two cause of chronic illness in America and the third leading cause of Social Security disability behind heart disease and cancer. (Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, by contrast, is not an autoimmune disease; in fact, it is entirely different. In AIDS a virus attacks the immune system and destroys it, whereas in autoimmune disease, the immune system leads the attack, mistaking the body's tissue for an invader and turning on the body itself.)

Autoimmune diseases are the eighth leading cause of death among women, shortening the average patient's lifespan by fifteen years. Not surprisingly, the economic burden is staggering: autoimmune diseases represent a yearly health-care burden of more than $120 billion, compared to the yearly health-care burden of $70 billion for direct medical costs for cancer.
To underscore these numbers, consider: while 2.2 million women are living with breast cancer and 7.2 million women have coronary disease, an estimated 9.8 million women are afflicted with one of the seven more common autoimmune diseases: lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, Chron's Disease, Sjögren's, and type 1 diabetes. All of these can lead to potentially fatal complications.

Or slice these statistics another way: while one in 69 women below the age of fifty will be diagnosed with breast cancer, according to estimates, as many as one in nine women of childbearing years will be diagnosed with an autoimmune illness, which strike three times as many women as men -- and most often strike patients in their prime. According to the National Institutes of Health, autoimmune disease affects far more patients than the 9 million Americans who have cancer and the 16 million with coronary disease.

Anal Crohn's, Candles, Suppositories (Canasa) and a Poop Joke

Yeah so I guess now I have "anal Crohn's" in the form of a potential fistula. I guess that explains why I walk around with paper towels folded up between my ass cheeks and have such urgency issues. Anyways, now crohn's has given me the luxury of an excuse to shove my own fingers up my ass. So after a Corona or two the other night, I laid on the couch and lit some candles (yes, literally...I am such a romantic). After the mood was set I got the astroglide out of Amy's night stand and crammed a Canasa rectal suppository up my ass. How hot is that!? So I guess the Canasa is pretty much like a Pentasa or Asacol but it just goes up the poop chute.

Gross I know, but makes for good laughs as I have in typical fashion told this story to everyone. Gotta love Crohn's humor and poop jokes. Always a good time. So I guess this is a good time for a poop joke:

At the start of English class, the teacher asked the students to use the word, definitely, in a sentence.

Little Timmy raised his hand. The teacher pointed and said, “Yes, Timmy, can you use the word definitely in a sentence?”

Little Timmy stood and said, “The grass is definitely green.”
The teacher shook her head and replied, “No Timmy, sometimes the sun is so hot, it browns the grass, so the grass is not definitely green.”

Little Susie raised her hand and said, “The sky is definitely blue.”

“No Susie, sometimes there are clouds in the sky. So the sky is not definitely blue,” the teacher stated.

Little Johnny raised his hand.

“Yes, Johnny, can you use the word definitely in a sentence?”

“Um, well … when you break wind, does it have chunks in it?” Johnny asked as he squirmed in his seat.
“No,” the teacher replied.

Little Johnny stood and said, “Then may I be excused, because I have definitely just shit on myself.”

Another Day in the Life of Crohn;s

So I saw the Dr. Shafran and Patty today. I gotta say these guys (Winter Park, Fl) are the best gasto doctors I have come across in the 13 years I have had Crohn's Disease. Anyways we discussed a wide variety of topics. I need to be Humira free for 3 months before I can start the clinical trial that is Stem Cell Transplant for Crohn's. The trial is actually a 4 stage blood transfusion that I am going to read up on more (and report my findings tonight). It seems pretty low risk, but there is a 1/3 chance I will get a placebo, (what, red kool-aid??) 1/3 chance I get a half transplant (hopefully my right side!), and 1/3 chance I will get a full transplant. I am going for a 3-d Cat Scan next week which will allow them to better see the extend of my disease. As a bridge I am going back on Pentasa/Azulfidine (9 pills a day). I also am going to try Lexapro (10 mg). I have not been myself this past year. I am myself (HAPPY) about 2 hours a week. The rest of the time I am in pain, bummed, tired, stressed and cranky. I also have alot of anxiety issues and fear of death and dying, thought not necessarily dying from Crohn's Disease. Anyways more to come later.

Thanks for the support guys.

Stem Cell Transplant or Surgery? Meet with Dr. Shafran Tomorrow

to find out...I ran into Ira and Anita on the street today at a St. Patty's Day Parade in Winter Park (a bit early I know). Anyways after reading up on the whole stem cell and Crohn's thing I am nervous as hell for this appointment. However with nothing really working medication wise (Pentasa/6MP, Asacol, Remicade, Humira, etc), I am down to either letting it go until a major flare up, Surgery or this whole Stem Cell Transplant. I will post after I meet with Dr. Shafran and his staff.