Healthy Families, Healthy Homes
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| 3/25/2008 |
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| Many of us can relate a personal story about how cancer has directly influenced our lives. Yet, the long reaching affects of the disease don`t always have to hit us, sometimes avoiding it can be as simple as being screened. Dr. Stephen Makoni, a Trinity Medical Oncologist says, "if it is caught early this is a highly curable disease." Don`t just take the doctor`s word, a lot of people could tell you how important it is to be screened for colorectal cancer, early and often. Bob Darby`s dad was diagnosed at age 50 and died just five years later. Leaving Bob, a teenager, at home with a single mom. "Because of his untimely death as a relatively young man, I decided that I would go through screening especially as I have gotten older," says Bob Darby. Bob gets his screening every 5 to 6 years. Doctors recommend if there is no family history of colorectal cancer to get your first colonoscopy at age 50. And don`t be embarrassed by the invasive nature and location of the procedure a few hours of preparation and screening can make all the difference. Darby says, "it`s better if you are embarrassed to suffer for a few minutes through that then to die from the disease." Being screened can find cancerous lesions, ones that require surgery, like in the situation of Mark Lyman`s father who will go under the knife at the end of March to remove 18 inches of his colon, in an effort to get rid of the disease. For him, healthcare professionals where Mark`s family lives in Utah are doing a great job, as for the future he`s concerned now about when he, and his brothers and sisters, should be screened. Dr. Makoni addresses his concerns, "for you, being a relative, or a first degree relative, what we recommend is not waiting until you hit the age of 50. We would want you to start screening 10 years before the age he was diagnosed." Putting Mark in the doctor`s office at age 40 to 45 being screened for a disease that will kill 120 North Dakotans a year. If we don`t catch the beginnings of the disease early enough, waiting until it hits later stages to start fighting the problem can prove impossible. "You are sitting on a time bomb, eventually that cancer is going to progress, we don`t have a cure for cancer which is metastatic," says Dr. Makoni. Giving us all just one more reason to get our colonoscopy done early and often. Doctor Makoni says in many cases colorectal cancer and pre-cancerous polyps don`t always cause symptoms, so waiting to feel sick or see blood in your stool may prove too late to cure this form of cancer. |
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