A good reason

So a few weeks ago we had a case come in with a big colon tumor, which managed to graft itself onto some of the small intestine as well. Along with it came this weird greenish section of skin, that looked a bit like a belly button. Turns out, these specimens had a story.

Consider this: a man in his late fourties, who is afraid of going to the doctor/hospital, for fear that they might give him bad news, that he might have some terrible illness. One day, this man notices something that feels like a lump in his stomach. Worried that a doctor might tell him it's a sign of something bad, he tries to ignore it, and hopes it will go away. Rather than going away, the mass gets bigger over time, and the man takes greater and greater efforts to ignore it.

One day, he notices a sore forming on his gut. It doesn't look like much, but it's red and it hurts to touch. Still afraid of the doctor, he tries to ignore it, and tells his wife it's probably just acne or something. Put a little polysporin on it, leave it alone for a while, maybe it'll go away on its own. When the sore starts leaking fluid, he tries to cover it up. His wife is more concerned, asking him to go to the doctor. Obviously he refuses.

Finally the day comes when the sore starts leaking feces. The wife forces her husband into the car, and drives him to the emergency room.

Turns out, that mass he discovered about 2 years ago was a colon tumor. If he had seen a doctor, it would have been easy to remove. Instead, he waited and allowed it to grow onto other parts of his body. It actually went so far as to eat away the wall of the abdominal cavity, which caused a sore to form that was basically a shortcut between his guts and the outside world.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when you suspect something si wrong, but don't see a doctor. Swallow your pride, overcome your fear, whatever. If there's a mass in your gut, it's probably worth getting checked on.