If you think of each day that goes by a 1% chance of getting cancer, that might work as a motivator. (I don't know if that's an accurate probability, but really I wouldn't risk it. I had a nasty bleeding tumor removed a few years back and it was no big deal because it was caught early and hadn't become cancerous yet. If I had waited a year things might have turned out a lot worse.)
The Infection Survival Rate of COVID19 for those 20-49 is 99.98%, according to the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...
0-19 years: 99.997%
20-49 years: 99.98%
50-69 years: 99.5%
70+ years: 94.6%
This gives a death rate of 20 out of 100,000 people for the 20-49 age group who get COVID19. And there is no guarantee you will contract COVID19.
I don't know what proportion of people with your symptoms have colon cancer, but I assume it's unfortunately much larger than 20 out of 100,000. The survival rate for colon cancer is highly dependent on how early it is diagnosed.
Like others, I encourage you to bring it up with your doc and ask about getting tested.
They did visually confirm inflamed external hemorrhoids a few years ago. I think they also took a stool sample and didn't find any blood in the stool itself, I believe (can't remember what else they tested in the stool), and when it happens it's usually after some significant walking (i.e. a long walk with the dogs), and it's bright red and not mixed in with the stool, so I've been inclined to agree with them.
I had blood almost 20 years ago back in college too, and it took forever for the situation to calm down because I had to walk so much to get from class to class every day (like a 15 minute walk between every class), so I was constantly irritating it. Back then I never got it checked out because I was too embarrassed, just tried to hide it as best as I could.
And when it was really bad a few years ago it was when we were living in a townhome with a dog and I had to go walk him for 15-20 minutes 4 times a day every day, so it was a similar issue to back in college. It's been pretty rare since then (I've only had it happen twice the past two years, and the most recent time it was after we returned from a 3 hour hike).
So I'm pretty sure it's more just the hemorrhoids. I do still want to get it checked, but Covid is more of a concern since I have some risk factors that could lead to a poor outcome. And I'm not even saying wait until Covid "goes away" or anything, just until next summer when it's likely to go down to a somewhat manageable level again (<5% positivity rate), at least in my state. Currently we're about double that.
EDIT: Also another commenter made me aware that you can order and get at-home Fecal Immunochemical Tests (which I'm pretty sure was what I got at the doctors several years ago) to help detect blood within the stool, so I went ahead and ordered one. If that comes back positive, I'll schedule a colonoscopy right away.
Er, actually after consulting with my doctor, since apparently insurance companies aren't required to cover it before the age of 50 and they can cost up to $4000. Maybe with a doctor recommendation insurance will cover it.
I recently lost a close friend to bowel cancer in his 30s. He'd been ignoring blood in his stools, and it was stage 4 before it got picked up.
Don't find excuses to put it off.
As other already said, a colonoscopy isn't really bad. It deffenitly beats having cancer by an order of magnitude!
Then Chadwick died, and I'm like, man, he got diagnosed with Stage 3 the same age I am now, and I'm in terrible shape compared to him.
I'm thinking I should probably get a colonoscopy next summer, after this wave of Covid dies down again. Wouldn't be surprised if I at least have some pre-cancerous polyps.