Surviving Colorectal Cancer, Part 29
A Wake-Up Call: Comparing a Colonoscopy to Colon Cancer Treatments.
Quick facts: A colonoscopy in the USA costs an average of $2,750 and takes only a few hours. Colon cancer treatment at major hospitals can cost half a million dollars or more and take many many months, plus recovery and follow-up tests for several years.
Comparing the two — a colonoscopy vs. hospital treatment for colon cancer — should be a loud wake-up alarm for everybody. But it isn’t always.
It wasn’t for me.
I knew that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Cancer Society and many primary care doctors recommended a colonoscopy as the gold standard for colon cancer screening. And I knew from the experiences of others, including my younger sister, that the procedure was well worth the time and minor cost.
But I didn’t hear any alarms. So, I put off a colonoscopy for years and years after a sigmoidoscopy at age 50 showed no problems.
I had no family history of colon cancer. I was in good health overall for a man my age. My annual physical examinations and wellness checkups every six months, including a fecal take-home test, didn’t reveal any symptoms.
When I was 76, I declined a colonoscopy in San Diego after my doctor discussed it with me. He said the CDC guidelines considered a colonoscopy optional after age 75 for patients in good health, with no symptoms, and with no family history. Check. Check. Check.
Declining the colonoscopy was a tragic mistake on my part. I don’t blame my doctor. I blame myself. I was foolish.
Two years later, in early June of 2022, I was diagnosed with Stage IIIc colorectal cancer based on a tumor in my rectum the size of a softball. The cancer had spread through the colon wall but had not spread beyond nearby lymph nodes or to nearby organs.
My wife and I live in Guadalajara, Mexico, and traveling to and from the USA for five months of chemotherapy and radiation to shrink the tumor to facilitate surgery would have been difficult in my weakened condition. We decided to remain in Guadalajara for treatment because Hospital San Javier is a preferred provider for my international BlueCross/BlueShield insurance.
The statements from BCBS in the 24 months since my diagnosis show that it has paid $599,558.93 to my hospital. A big chunk of that is because I was a hospital inpatient for 125 days during the first 12 months. Fortunately, the hospital and medical center billed BCBS directly.
The statements show my only out-of-pocket costs were $3,900 for some office consultations with out-of-network providers. That out-of-pocket expense is more than a colonoscopy would have cost at age 76, and my insurance would have paid all costs for the colonoscopy.
Read that last sentence again and let it sink in. Is that a prime example of being foolish? I think so.
I’m not alone among colon cancer survivors who recognize the importance of having a colonoscopy to minimize or avoid the risk of expensive and debilitating colorectal cancer.
Cindy Coe, a Stage IIIb colorectal survivor I follow on Medium, recently posted a video blog to encourage people to get screened for colon cancer. It’s a great testament to the value of colon cancer screening, especially a colonoscopy. I urge you to click that link and watch the entire six-minute video.
She also posted a detailed description on Medium in November 2023 of the dollars and the other costs resulting from her trying to survive and recover from colorectal cancer. Here are her statistics:
· $531,198 in medical insurance claims (includes diagnosis)
· $98,592 in out-of-pocket costs — $30,000 of which are out of network and can’t be applied to a deductible
· 295 Cancer-related appointments including all medical appointments as well as mental health and integrative/complementary medicine appointments (as mentioned above).
· 15,566 miles traveled for appointments
· 104 Administrations of drugs and/or prescriptions. This includes chemo drugs so some drugs and prescription refills are counted more than once. This number does not include drugs administered for scans or surgeries.
· 97,400 Minutes in 582 Days of meditation and mindfulness to keep my head on straight! Calculation from the Insight Timer App (LINK) — Does not include additional meditation minutes from Apple Music and Spotify.
· 100,236 Exercise Minutes to be and stay well! This was a little tougher to calculate due to the limitations of the Apple health app so I had to estimate as best I could from the data provided. Given I exercise every day of the week with few exceptions, even when I was in treatment, I took the daily average for the year and multiplied it by the number of days — and yes, I took a few days off for the sake of argument.
Cindy stated in her 2023 article that the average cost of a colonoscopy is $3,081, slightly higher than the figure from GoodRx that I cited in my opening.
For both of us and other colon cancer patients, the cost of doctors and hospitals don’t reflect other costs related to the mental and physical impact of our treatments. And that doesn’t consider the effects on the disrupted lives of patients and loved ones.
I don’t keep detailed statistics like Cindy does. I don’t keep track of the number of appointments, miles traveled, drugs and prescriptions, or meditation. Those are too many details for me to quantify. But anybody can see the financial costs.
It’s obvious that a colonoscopy is a whole lot better than experiencing colon cancer and enduring treatments for months and months.
Pay attention to the alarm. Wake up. Get a colonoscopy.
—
In June of 2022, at age 78, I was diagnosed with Stage IIIc colorectal cancer. After five months of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation, I had successful surgery in January of 2023 to remove the tumor followed by successful surgery in May to reverse my colostomy.
Surviving advanced-stage colorectal cancer was like starting a new life. My oncologist and my wife both urged me to write about my experience as a catharsis and to encourage people to have colon cancer screenings. I began journaling every day, and to celebrate my 80th birthday in October of 2023 I began posting articles almost every week on Medium. I hope my articles will motivate people to have thorough colon cancer screening starting in their 40s and continuing past 75 and also help other colorectal cancer patients deal with everyday life while trying to survive five years or more.
If you like the articles, clap a few times, leave comments, and share them with people you care about. Thanks!
