Celebrating the Irish! March 13, 2008

This weekend marks a big weekend for celebrating the Irish. Monday is St. Patrick’s Day and the fun starts Friday with parties, a Mass and performances. Saturday is the big parade, and this year, Irene O’Connor will be among the hundreds of marchers as Hartford town parade marshal.

Kara and I were the “persons of the year” in 2005, and still have our sashes from that honor.

On Sunday, the O’Hartford 5K race brings runners from all over. On Monday, more than 1,000 people will attend the Archbishop’s Annual St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast at the Connecticut Convention Center.

For more info: http://www.enjoyhartford.com/index.cfm

Get a Colonoscopy! March 10, 2008

As you probably learned on Face the State this Sunday, I somewhat recently had a colonoscopy. I mentioned it as we aired a report about Gov. Jodi Rell and Katie Couric getting together to promote colon cancer prevention.

Watch Report

They recommend everyone over 50 get a colonoscopy. I am much younger than that, but I got a colonoscopy because of colon cancer in my family. Couric’s husband died of the disease at the age of 42.

The worst part of the colonoscopy was the apprehension leading up to it. I was worried about the procedure, what if they found something?

The procedure wasn’t as nearly as bad as I expected. It was actually pretty easier. The prep stuff isn’t pleasant, as you clear out your system, and the procedure lasted about 20 minutes or so. I actually asked for a lower dosage of the sedative, so I could witness what was happening. You get to see the inside of your squeaky clean colon on a small television screen.

I got a clean bill of health and was told to come back for another in about 5 years.

Do what I did, get a colonoscopy. Colon cancer is a preventable cancer with a high-cure rate if caught early.

National Cancer Institute: Colon and Rectal Cancer