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Cheney in charge while Bush investigated (medically)

by Actual News Geezer | July 20, 2007 at 09:20 am

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Vice President Dick Cheney will assume control as US Commander-in-Chief which President George Bush gets a colonoscopy on Saturday, White House spokesman Tony Snow announced a short time ago.

President Bush will undergo a medical procedure tomorrow that will require him to temporarily transfer his presidential authority to Vice President Dick Cheney.

White House press secretary Tony Snow delivered the news that Bush was having a colonoscopy in his noon press briefing. The procedure, which involves a snake-like probe of the large bowel through the rectum, requires sedation and can last up to an hour. Regular colonoscopies to check for signs of colon cancer are recommended for men and women over age 50 every five years.

Colonoscopies are no fun. Wikipedia has already reported that President Bush is about to get one:

Colonoscopy is the minimally invasive endoscopic examination of the large colon and the distal part of the small bowel with a CCD camera or a fiber optic camera on a flexible tube passed through the anus. It may provide a visual diagnosis (e.g. ulceration, polyps) and grants the opportunity for biopsy or removal of suspected lesions. Virtual colonoscopy, which uses 2D and 3D imagery reconstructed from computed tomography (CT) scans or from nuclear magnetic resonance (MR) scans, is also possible, as a totally non-invasive medical test, although it is not standard and still under investigation regarding its diagnostic abilities. Furthermore, virtual colonoscopy does not allow for therapeutic maneuvers such as polyp/tumor removal or biopsy nor visualization of lesions smaller than 5 millimeters. If a growth or polyp is detected using CT colonography, a standard colonoscopy would still need to be performed. Colonoscopy can remove polyps smaller than one millimeter. Once polyps are removed, they can be studied with the aid of a microscope to determine if they are precancerous or not. Colonoscopy is similar but not the same as sigmoidoscopy. The difference between colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy is related to which parts of the colon each can examine. Sigmoidoscopy allows doctors to view only the final two feet of the colon, while colonoscopy allows an examination of the entire colon, which measures four to five feet in length. Often a sigmoidoscopy is used as a screening procedure for a full colonoscopy.

On July 20, 2007, it was reported that U.S. president George W. Bush
will have a colonoscopy and temporarily transfer power to vice president Dick Cheney.