I was born to write this lead:"My butt could save your life."

That immortal phrase appeared at the top of my story in the St. Petersburg Times this week, a cautionary tale about my tail, so to speak, my colonoscopy, that is.

I share this story for two reasons:to describe some important writing strategies; and, more crucial, to get you screened for colon and rectal cancer if you belong to one of the risk groups.

As you will see, I am fine.Osama bin Polyp, that cave dwelling bio-terrorist, has been hunted down and destroyed.But the reaction I have received from this article proves to me that a lot of Americans are letting their inhibitions threaten their lives.One role of personal journalism is to encourage others to do the right thing by sharing your own experience.

Not even Dave Barry's colonoscopy diarycomes close to Katie Couric's television broadcast of her screening.I can't imagine how many lives have been saved by her advocacy.

I wrote my essay with a clear mission and purpose, both for the content, form, and intended consequences.As to form and content, when I write something for the St. Pete Times I ask myself, "What can I accomplish today that has never been accomplished before?"Or "What can I say in the paper that has never been said before?"

In this case it was comedy about cancer, along with specific and metaphorical language about those places in the body where the sun don't shine.This essay contains lots of language about things that go into the butt and things that come out, all designed to get folks to laugh and overcome their squeamish resistance to screening.

Usually, I encourage writers to choose a voice somewhere between understatement and overstatement, between euphemism and its opposite, dysphemism.This essay called for a different standard of language.It required some plain talk:"Her father died of colon cancer, then so did her mother;" some euphemism:"keep a fragrant candle burning in the bathroom"; and lots of comic exaggeration:"...searching for a little cave-dwelling bioterrorist I've named Osama bin Polyp."

After all, I'm trying to amuse an audience into taking action against a deadly disease, so the movement between these levels of language seemed to express the voice I was shooting for.

Typical for me, the essay was about one-third too long for the available space in the paper. I did something quite atypical: I let Mike Wilson, my editor, take the first crack (so to speak) at cutting it.He did a brilliant job, deleting the more outrageous humor, but maintaining the spirit and highlighting the most important information.In short, he managed to turn me from a high school sophomore into a high school junior.

The responses, so far, are just what I'd hoped for:"I want to thank you for your article in Sunday's paper about your test.I was supposed to get the test last year and for all the obvious reasons, did not.Having read your article I will now make the appointment.My father had polyps and I will be 50 next year so it has to be done.But I must say if I had not read your story I probably would have put it off another year ... if not longer. I have an aversion to things going up my butt.So thank you sir. I will now relax my sphincter."

And another:"Thanks for the great story about your colonoscopy.I hope folks will read it and get the test done.I put off having mine until age 56, big mistake, the 5-hour surgery a month after my procedure was 1,000 times worse that the colonoscopy, and costs exceeded 130K ... The Doc told me if I had the procedure at 50years oldor even 53, I would not have had the cancer, eliminating the major surgery.I've tried to encourage every one I know to get after it, and your story hopefully reached more people than I could ever hope."

Please add your own comments about my butt, or feel free to share stories about your own.