45, so young. Thanks for being there for all of us re: Ubuntu!
The article says illness, but which illness?
I had a medical colleague who unexpectedly died at 33 after Christmas.
Life is short. Hug your loved ones and let them know you love them everyday.
I don't know the exact cause colonoscopies are not performing as thought, but for breast cancer it's quite interesting - basically treatment was improving at the exact same time early screening was being heavily promoted. And so years of survival continued to increase in a strongly proportional way to early screenings.
Naturally people assumed the correlation was causal, but it turns out screening mammograms are only marginally effective and that women are significantly more likely to receive unnecessary treatment (treating small tumors that would not have developed into large malignant tumors) than to receive beneficial treatment. [2]
If screening provides someone with piece of mind, then more power to them, but you're unlikely to meaningfully extend your life.
There are less invasive tests that can be done instead as well. They are not as likely to find cancer (which is why you should have done the more invasive colonoscopy), and if they do find anything you have to do a colonoscopy anyway, so for those with less family history who have unexplained bleeding while young they are a good option. Ask your doctor about the pros and cons of them if this comes up. (I suspect once you reach 50 a colonoscopy every 10 years is the right answer)
It's actually not that bad. I did it six months ago (at 51 y/o, never having done any before that), after reading an identical comment on HN saying to just go and do it.
I don't know about other countries but I could choose between no anesthesia at all, light one or full anesthesia. I went for the light one: you don't really fall asleep but you don't really remember either the silly things you say. After a few minutes (15 at most?) you're fully conscious again.
Zero polyps to remove and all crystal clear, doctor told me to come back for a checkup in 5 or 6 years.
So I confirm: just go and do it.
To some extent too, you don't get to chose this, those who write your obituary do. Perhaps his wife (I have no idea if he was marred) and him have a disagreement on what is embarrassing and so even though he would have shared this she wanted it secret.