The Aerial Alchemist
Where circus meets storytelling, wellness, and the magic of movement. Hosted by Fallon, founder of In the Wings, this podcast explores aerial dance, creativity, and the rituals that help us stay grounded while reaching new heights. From artistry to resilience, community to self-care, each episode offers inspiration for living boldly, moving with intention, and finding your own alchemy—both in the air and on the ground. Always… happy flying.
The Aerial Alchemist
Episode 26: It's Your Duty to Check Your Booty
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0:00 | Intro and Announcements
2:36 | Importance of Colon Cancer Screenings
5:31 | Understanding Screening Guidelines and Family History
8:24 | What to Expect for Your Colonoscopy
12:11 | The Procedure Explained
15:01 | Post-Procedure Care and Common Questions
18:20 | Final Thoughts
Connect with Fallon
📧 info@inthewingsaerial.com
🌐 www.inthewingsaerial.com
Welcome to The Aerial Alchemist, where movement transforms into magic and stories take flight. I'm Fallon, dancer, aerialist, and storyteller, inviting you into a world where circus and dance meet creativity, resilience, and community. Whether you're here to be inspired, to learn, or to simply dream a little bigger, you found your place. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to the Aerial Alchemist, episode number 26. Today we're taking a hard turn. It is colon cancer awareness month this month, as well as International Women's Month, which we will also talk about maybe next week. But I thought about this first because in addition to my life as the director of In the Wings, I am also a nurse and I have been working in GI for a long time now. Twelve 12 years. Twelve years I've been in GI. Before we hop in today, though, I want to talk about uh a couple announcements. Per usual, this weekend is CASS, uh, the Colorado Aerial Arts Summit. Yeah, you're hearing this on Tuesday. It is on Friday. But we are opening it with uh the instructor showcase on Friday evening, the 27th. So come and join us for that. It's gonna be really fun. I am doing something that I've never done before and I'm kind of scared. So if you if you like me as a human and you want to come support me and watch me do a scary thing, I will be doing improv in front of an audience live. I've never done that before. Only for myself or in classes or in rehearsals, never for paying people. So this is gonna be fun and new. I'm also teaching a couple of workshops over the weekend, as well as so many other amazing instructors in the area. So make sure you go sign up for that if you haven't done that already. Get do it because you're late now. And then our retreat, Flourish, is coming up in about three months, which is so stinking exciting. So we still have a few spots left. Jump on in for that. There's a link in the show notes so that you can find out more. And if you have any questions at all, please reach out to myself or Leah. Um, we are happy, happy to answer them for you. We want to make sure everybody feels really comfortable coming and they get exactly what they want out of it. It's gonna be a good time. So now let's jump in. So March is colon cancer awareness month, and that's what I do every day. Uh, every day that I'm not doing aerial, I am working at a hospital in the GI lab doing colonoscopies and upper endoscopies and ERCPs and other things GI related. Uh, but the bulk of what we do is colon cancer screenings. Why is this a big deal? So, according to the American Cancer Society, in 2026, the estimates uh for new cases of colon cancer are gonna be close to 109,000 new cases of colon cancer this year. That's not a small number, and about 50,000 new cases of rectal cancer. Men are a little bit more likely to get it than women, but honestly, not by much, y'all. I'll put the link down in the show notes about to this article from the American Cancer Society. So you can see exact numbers if you're a number, a numbers person and you want to see all of it. It is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men and the fourth leading cause in women. But when you combine them, then it's the second most common cause of cancer death among men and women. So that's a lot. And here's the thing: this is I I've been in GI a long time. I love doing it. It's not rewarding like maybe the ICU, like maybe the ER, where you can see immediately what you did. But what I get to do every day is prevent cancer in people. Colon cancer is colon and rectal cancer, it's the only preventable kind of cancer that exists. The rest of them are just screening for the cancer after you already have it. I get to stop it before it even happens. So that feels really exciting and really rewarding. So yeah, so I'm gonna talk about it because I hear so many people with so many excuses about why they don't want to get their colonoscopy and do I have to, and ew, and it's gross, and all these things. And I get it. And you can come up with any number of excuses that you want. And you don't have to. It's really is your body, not mine. You could do whatever you want with it. But what I am here to say is that any of those things that you are worried about are far less than actually getting cancer. And I can say that because I've had cancer. Not colon cancer, but breast cancer. And I'll tell you that you don't want anything to do with it on any level. So if you can prevent it from happening, then you should do that, my friend. Let me tell you. So here's the deal with colon cancer specifically. They dropped the screening age for colon cancer a few years ago to 45. Um, in my personal opinion, I have no studies or data to back this up, but in my personal opinion, my anecdotal opinion, they should have just done it to 40 because I imagine it's gonna drop soon. We're seeing, seeing colon cancer in younger and younger patients than we have in the past. And um, yeah, and a lot of like one-offs that people come in for something completely different, something diagnostic. And we just happened to find a polyp that is not had it's asymptomatic. Um, but had we left it in there, they definitely would have had colon cancer before their screening age. So um I do think that that will drop. I mean, case in point, we um unfortunately lost a couple of our big beloved stars recently, um, one of them being James Vanderbeek. He was 48 when he passed. Um, and I think he had been battling it for a few years, which means he probably got screened on time. So here's the other deal. So the the recommended screening age is 45 if if you know nothing about your history. However, if an immediate relative, a mom, a dad, a brother, or sister, had a polyp or their own colon cancer diagnosis, um, then you would have your screening 10 years before that happened. So for instance, my mom had her first colonoscopy when she was 50, because that was, or 51, rather, she was a year late. And when she was 51, they found her first polyp. No big deal, a couple little polyps, they took them off fine. But that made my screening age 41. And they let me go a year early too. So I went at 40 for my first screening colonoscopy. Um, so yeah, if she whatever, whatever the age is 10 years before that polyp or colon cancer diagnosis. Andor if you have a change in bowel habits yourself, then you can go in and see a GI doc and likely get a colonoscopy depending on what is going on with you, if they deem that necessary. The new thing that has come up, especially in the last year, is the cola guard, because in our country we get to advertise for things that, in my opinion, should not be advertised for for the general public. One of those has been col guard. Colaga is an at-home test that you can take that can tell you whether or not you have colon cancer and or polyps. It's not, it's not my favorite. I don't like it. Let me tell you why. If it's positive, you gotta come in and get a colonoscopy anyways. And sometimes your insurance will then not pay for it because yay for America. So why didn't you just do the colonoscopy to begin with? Weird. Should have just done that. I do think that it's better than nothing. If you can't get a colonoscopy for some reason or you won't because you're that stubborn, then do the cola guard so that at least you know that you can take care of something should you need to. But they are diet, they are uh recommending these more and more for people. I do not think it's the best solution. There's a lot of false positives on them. Um, so then you come in for no reason. Um and I don't know how many false negatives there are. So uh yeah, if you can get the colonoscopy, do that. And if your primary care says cold guard, tell them to shove it and that you want the colonoscopy instead. Your favorite nurse told you so. So, what is the whole prep and procedure like? So what is gonna happen when you schedule your colonoscopy? You are going to get a prescription, likely, or an over-the-counter regimen for your colon prep. See, everybody asks why I decide to be a colon nurse and or a GI nurse, and isn't that gross? You deal with poop all day. No, I don't because people are cleaned out by the time they come to me. At least they should be. So you have to you have to clear everything out. And how we do that is I hate to break it to you, you're not gonna eat for a day. It's a long time, but I believe in you. You can do it because you can do hard things. So you're on clear liquids the day before your procedure. So I thought that I would love the jello because it would feel like I was chewing something you're allowed to have jello because it is liquid at room temperature. And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just chew on some jello. It for me it was not satiating, and what was better was chicken broth. So that's what I do is a bunch of broth throughout the day. Uh, the one that I learned with my, I've had two colonoscopies at this point. And what I learned with my second one is that juice is your friend. Get some apple juice, get some grape juice. Those are both clear liquids. The sugar is good because you're gonna your sugar is gonna drop because you're not eating anything. So uh, so yeah, so get some juice and have the broth and the juice. And if jello is your jam, then cool. Do that too. Then in the afternoon, the day before the procedure, you're gonna drink one half of your prep solution. It doesn't taste good. It also doesn't taste that bad. If you have an option of flavor, I recommend the lemon lime type flavors, the citrus flavors over like a berry flavor. For me, it just got too sweet. The citrus can be a little less nauseating and stomach-turning. No matter what you get, I recommend you put it in the fridge before you're gonna drink it and get it cold. It will taste better that way. And get a straw. And drink it with a straw because then you can down it a little bit quicker. After you drink it, usually between 30 minutes to an hour, you're gonna need to be by a toilet because it is going to come out and everything will come out. And for me, and for a lot of people, once it's done working, it's kind of done working, and you can get a mostly good night's sleep. Then the morning of the procedure, five hours before the procedure, typically with most doctors' instructions, you will take the second half. And then same thing with all of that. Look in the toilet, make sure that it's coming out clear. If it's not coming out clear and you're getting towards the end of it, and you're getting close to your cutoff time when you can't have something to drink anymore, you're gonna want to call your doctor's office and see what they want you to do about that. Yeah, they might have you drink a little extra stuff. So another thing you can do is start early, like start drinking the prep a little bit earlier so that um it can work. And then if you know it's not working, maybe if it's your first time you want to see how it works, or you struggle with constipation, then um then you'll have time to like get that other stuff in so that you don't have to delay your procedure too long because you don't want that. But yeah, make sure you look in the toilet. I can't tell you how many people I've been like, so what color is it coming out now? And they're like, I don't know, I don't look. And I'm like, well, you you you got we kind of need to know. Like, because we might not be able to do the procedure. That's what will happen. They won't do your procedure and you'll get rescheduled. And you might go a whole nother day without eating. So it's kind of important that you get it right the first time, as much as possible. So then you've gonna go through all that. From here, it's downhill. That's the worst part. Not eating and drinking that stuff and pooping your little brains out. It's the worst part. And then you're gonna go in and you're and you're gonna get ready for your procedure. They're gonna ask you like a bunch of health history questions, what medications you're taking. They're gonna get your vital signs, they're gonna get your IV started. Um, and then they'll get you into the procedure room. They'll have you get cozy up on your left side, and they'll start giving you the drugs. There's different kinds of drugs that we can give for this. Sometimes they do what we call a conscious sedation, which is a combination of fentanyl and verset. And it's kind of like a twilight-like sleep where you're kind of sleepy and it's kind of like in the middle of the night where you get woken up and you kind of know what's going on, and you kind of don't, and you're a little out of it, and you're a little there, and you may or may not remember it happening. Um, so that's one. The other one is propofol, which is a monitored anesthesia care, and it's a deeper sedation. And that one, you are completely asleep, you do not know what's going on, you're completely unaware, but they don't start a breathing a breathing tube on you like they would with general anesthesia. At any rate, the procedure takes about twenty to thirty minutes, and then they keep you in recovery and you wake up for about 20 to 30 minutes, and then you're ready to go home. The procedure does not hurt when you do that. Can you do it without drugs? Yes, you can. I did it without the drugs. Does it feel good? Nope. Is it doable? Yep. It's very crampy. Here's a very cool tidbit that I think your colon does not have pain receptors. Not like pinchy pain receptors, it has stretch receptors. So when they put the scope in and they're navigating your colon, it stretches your colon and it feels like you ate the worst oysters in your entire life, and you have to poop immediately. And it cramps and all that stuff. So that's that's the discomfort that you feel. That's the pain that you feel. But during my procedures, I watched them do biopsies and I could not feel it because you can't, because it doesn't have that kind of pain receptor, which I just think is so fascinating. So yeah, and then after the procedure, you get to go eat something. I, as a nurse and as someone who's done it, I recommend doing something a little bit lighter to start because you've gone a whole day without eating anything. And if you eat that big burger or that big burrito, it not gonna sit well. Don't ask me how I know, but you might feel real nauseous, it might come back up. So I recommend going a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter. Most breakfast foods will sit just fine. And then have a nap because you're gonna want it, and then wake up and have what you really want, and then you're gonna really enjoy it. So yeah. So then that's the whole procedure. That's it. It's really quite easy. So many people come in for their first procedure and they're super anxious, and I so get it because it is nerve-wracking. And then we finish and they wake up and they're like, Are you gonna start? And we say, You're already done. And they go, What? No, I don't even remember going to sleep. So it's really quite simple and easy. And with a propofol, especially, which more most places are going to now, it's a really nice nap, and you don't feel very drugged or hangover when you wake up, you're feeling pretty good. Um, and you just go about the rest of your day. Um, you do have restrictions the rest of the day, like no driving, um, because you are still under the influence of drugs um and no alcohol, and you just kind of take it easy that day, and the next day you're back to normal. So pretty easy. Other common questions I get is are polyps common? Yes. And the older you get, the more common they get. Can we do anything to change it? Not really. Smoking for sure. Don't smoke. Alcohol, that's another like common thing. But aside from that, not really. And there have been plenty of people that live these perfectly healthy lifestyles. They don't drink, they don't smoke, they eat a lot of vegetables, whatever, whatever you think of as healthy. They're doing all of those things. They exercise and they'll have like a ton of polyps. No one knows why. No one in their family has them. I don't know, but they come in and we do it. And then there's the flip side of the people who are like completely unhealthy smoking cigarettes, not not taking care of their bodies like like maybe they could in some ways. And um, and they don't have any. And you're like, okay. And then most people are somewhere in between that, honestly, because we all just do our best. And some people have them, some people don't. Another common question, my doctor says that polyps are nothing to worry about. Is this true? Mostly, yeah. And there's different kinds of polyps. So there's polyps that are called hyperplastic polyps. Those are the kind of polyps that would never be anything, they were just bumps in the colon, and we thought that maybe they could be a polyp, but we weren't sure. So we took it anyways, because when in doubt, take it out, and and then it ended up being just a bump. Then there's the adenomas or the precancerous polyps, and those are the ones that if we left them, they could turn into cancer one day. These are all typically very slow growing, which is why in between, if you don't have any family history and we don't find any real polyps, aka adenomas, then you get 10 years in between your colonoscopy screenings. And then if we do find them, then sometimes it's seven, sometimes it's five, sometimes it's three. It just depends on how many and what kind we find. Yeah. Other common questions that I get are are you looking at my butt during the procedure? I've had friends. You can't, I can't come in and see you at work. You're looking at my butt. First of all, I don't need to be your nurse in the procedure. I can be somewhere else. Second of all, I'm not looking at your butt. I am looking at a screen. We are all looking at a screen. No one's looking at your butt. Also, I have seen thousands and thousands of booties at this point. They I couldn't pick one out of a lineup. I don't care. It's just a butt. Yeah, we don't it's it's just not a thing for us. It's it's a thing for you, and I get that, but it's not a thing for us. And I'm not sitting there staring at it. Like I said, I'm looking at the screen and we're looking for polyps. We're all just searching, looking for 'em all day, every day. Which brings me to my last comment question is how many do you do in a day? Depends on the practice, depends on the doctor, and depends on the day. The last practice I worked at, each doctor could do up to 18 in a day. Now I'm at a practice where we do 12 at max in a day, which is so much nicer on my body now, much easier to do. So yeah, but no matter what, we get really good at our jobs. We're doing the same thing. We do three different three or four different kinds of procedures. That's it. We get we're very specialized in what we do. We are good at it. I've always worked with really, really proficient professionals in GI. Everybody's very good at what they do. And it's always a very collaborative team environment everywhere that I've worked, um, which is really great to work in, which then also makes it really great as a patient. So and honestly, we're all having a good time at work. We all like each other, and it's a good time, and we don't take ourselves too seriously because we do buds and guts, you know what I'm saying? So yeah. I know that this is not really about Ariel at all. But it's so important for so many people. And if if you've never heard about this before, you needed to hear about it. It's a thing, and it doesn't need to be that big of a deal. And if you have questions, I I am just as passionate about this stuff as I am Ariel. I'm happy to answer anything. Like I said, I've been doing it a long time and I really, I really enjoy I really enjoy it, which I know people think sounds crazy, but I like it. So um I like saving lives every day. It is your duty to check your booty. So get in and do it if you are if you are of the age, get in and get it done. Yeah. So that's all for day. Today, I'm gonna I'm gonna stop talking about guts and butts now and uh and let you get get on with your your morning or your day or whenever you're listening to this. I want to thank my Patreons, my patrons on Patreon. Yes, thank you for supporting me and all of my work that I do. I could not do it without you. If you enjoyed this or other episodes, I would be so eternally grateful if you liked it, shared it, subscribed, and even maybe join me on Patreon where I share different things behind the scenes that you cannot find anywhere else in the social media world. So yeah, I'd love to see you on there. If you have requests for future episodes, you can send them to me. I'd be happy, happy to hear them. Uh, you can reach me on all of the social medias at in the wings Ariel or on Patreon at in the wings Ariel. I hope you have a beautiful week and I will see you next week. This has been the Ariel Alchemist. Now go create some magic of your own. Happy flying.