Facing The FIT Test

Don’t let procrastination and avoidance win — get tested!

This is a story I’ve been meaning to tell for some weeks, but my friend Beth’s post about her recent diagnosis encouraged me to make this one a priority.

The package has arrived (photo by author)

Ontario Health sent me a couple of letters in the last year or so, in part to congratulate me on reaching the ripe old age of 50, and partly to “invite” me to do a FIT test — for colon cancer screening.

FIT stands for “fecal immunochemical test”.

What with everything else going on, I pushed that to one side. I’d deal with it later. Much later, if at all possible.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, and season followed season in my cozy little corner of rural Ontario. But all things must come to an end, and so too did the winter turn into spring, and the greening strawberry plants lured me into their wicked embrace.

For it was there, dear reader, that the tick first found its way into my shorts.

Or so I’m supposing, based on the bite and rash that soon appeared. But I’m not here to talk about my Lyme Disease.

I’m here to talk about colon cancer.

Long story short, I had to go see the doctor for my Lyme Disease and took the opportunity, while there, to ask for a FIT test. Mind you, there was a sign up in the office, just to make sure I couldn’t forget.

The test itself is free, if you have OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan), and comes in the mail.

Sure enough, two weeks later, it arrived. A small envelope, easy to follow instructions, and a small plastic phial.

Honestly, I still procrastinated. Not out of fear of colon cancer, per se, but from sheer overwhelm. There was also the convenient question of whether or not Canada Post was going to go on strike still/again. I made full use of the excuse.

But, when fate sent me to the post office for other reasons, as fate sometimes does, I bit the bullet and took the test.

Gross, but easy (photo by author)

To be absolutely clear, this is a POOP test. You poop onto a paper, and then dip the tiny dipstick into your deposit (a Goldilocks amount), and seal it into the phial. It goes in a pre-paid pre-addressed envelope to the nearest lab, chosen for you automatically by the health system. (For me this was the same lab that processed my recent bloodwork.)

You just drop it off at the post-office and wait a couple more weeks to get the results.

Pop it in the post (photo by author)

Exactly two weeks later, an official-looking envelope came from Ontario Health. Now, let me explain something. I’d expected a letter only in the event of bad news, which is generally how things work around here. So it was with some trepidation mixed with a manic eagerness that I ripped open the envelope to read the dreaded message:

Your test results are NORMAL!

Please go through all of this again in a couple of years, just to be safe.

[Despite the apparent quote, I’m paraphrasing a little.]

YAY!

Let me just repeat that: they will send you a letter regardless of the result, so don’t panic (like I did) when that letter arrives.

And with repeated screening every couple of years, you have the best chance of catching colon cancer early, which also means having the best chance of beating it.

And that’s what all this is really about!

So get tested!

Thanks for reading!