Past Sunday Column

Everything goes backwards here...I wrote and published this column before my colonoscopy. You can read about those results directly after this post.

How can anger be useful?

I guess I am getting to that age where this will happen more and more, but I don't think it will ever be easy to deal with.

I have many far-flung friends and while we try to keep up with each other, we usually only make contact when something notable happens.

It wasn't too many years ago when that meant babies.
Now, it's the opposite of babies.

Two of my friends let me know in the last few weeks that a parent had died of cancer.

One parent I knew, the other I had never met and now never will.

For the first, who I knew, the overwhelming feeling is sadness. A woman who lived only to make a beautiful life for her daughter gone way too soon, way too painfully.

For the other, who I never met, the overwhelming feeling is anger. It's an anger born from a feeling of helplessness.

I don't get angry with people much anymore. If I do, it comes and goes in a flash.

My anger with cancer, however, dwells deep inside me and never goes away. It only bubbles to the surface occasionally but it is always there.

I decided a long time ago that it didn't do any good to get angry with people. It was an emotion that rarely solved problems and often created more.

It's hard to control. People can be frustrating. I have learned, however, that only a few people are intentionally frustrating and those are easily ignored.

Anger at a disease? Is that any better? You might as well be angry at a tree or a cloud.

I know it doesn't do any good, but I have let this anger simmer. I have even nurtured it.

I wear a pink wristband to remind me of my friends that are victims of this disease.

I wear a pink wristband because people are more likely to notice it on a man. People are more apt to ask me what it is all about and I am more than happy to tell them about it.

It has been more than a year since my cancer was removed and this week I will have a screening that I am positive will confirm my escape from its grasp.

Life, for me, has returned to normal but I know I am lucky.

My friend, colorectal cancer, is often deadly.

What makes me angry is it's preventable.

Most cancers aren't. You can lead a healthy lifestyle, avoid every carcinogen on the planet and still get cancer.

But colon cancer can be prevented.

The screening test for colon cancer, a colonoscopy, is actually what makes it preventable.

Your doctor can tell you when it is appropriate to have a colonoscopy. During this procedure precancerous polyps can be detected and removed.

There is nothing else like it.

If these precancerous polyps are allowed to develop into cancer, the mortality rate is heartbreaking.

A colonoscopy, to a young, healthy person might sound horrible, but it's not. It's without discomfort, it's painless and it's a lifesaver.

I know if I can channel my angry energy into positive energy I can do some good.

Hopefully, someone will read this, talk to their doctor and do something to prevent cancer.

We can mark one problem solved due to anger.

Tom Graser is the Managing Editor of The Marion Star. The message on his pink wrist band reads, "Hope, Faith, Love." You can ask him about it Friday and Saturday at The Marion Star booth at the Popcorn Festival from 12-2 p.m. He can also be reached at 740-375-5107 or tgraser@marionstar.com.