March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Specifically today is Dress in Blue Day — a day to bring awareness to the disease and to honor those who themselves who have been impacted by colorectal cancer. Today I’m sharing a bit of a personal story related to it in the below video. Also including a transcript of the video, below.
I’m wearing blue today to support this important cause. I have a history of abnormal colonoscopies in the family. My OBGYN recommended that I start screenings early. That should have meant at 40 but I’ll admit – I put it off a bit, so I didn’t do it until this year. With the kids though, I take anything touching on health so seriously because I know all too well that one of the biggest gifts parents can give their children is as much time with them as possible.
So back in January, i went in for a COVID test and went through all the highly unpleasant steps of having a colonoscopy. I can now confirm that everything you read about the prep being far worse than the procedure is absolutely true. I encountered questions by multiple people throughout the process. Why are you here? You’re so young! You’re so healthy! You don’t really need to be here, right?
Wrong. When I came out in a haze from the anaesthesia I learned they had to remove two polyps, one of which is what’s called tubular adenoma. Almost all colon cancer starts out as polyps. The thing about colon cancer? Time plays such a big role Polups grow slowly, over a decade or more. Tubular adenoma have about 4%-5% chance of becoming cancerous.
Tubular adenomas are more common in those:
- 50 or older
- Obese
- Male
- A couch potato
- From a family with history of colon polyps
- A couch potato
I’ve since learned that even with my now identified elevated risk, my insurance company will continue to treat this “diagnostic” — meaning insurance’s way of paying less of a percentage of the procedure. Not only do I have a higher risk going forward of polyps, I will be committed to screenings at a 3 year interval from here as a precaution. There’s not a lot of data about colon cancer rates in people my age because most are not actively being screened.
I’m here to say take it seriously. Know your family history. Ask questions of your insurance company. If it’s going to require you spend periodically, know your benefits and put aside money to prioritize and budget the money to spending on it.
The stats on it too are pretty alarming. There was some additional awareness on it due to the recent death of Chadwick Boseman who had stage 3 colon cancer. It’s important to be aware, know your history and act early. Definitely not the most glamorous story to share, but hopefully sharing my choice to act early will help you to learn a bit more and perhaps do the same if your history indicates a need to do so.
Resources / Articles:
- CDC information on colorectal cancer
- ACS on insurance coverage for colonoscopy screenings
- Craig Melvin’s brother gets colonoscopy after colon cancer death in the family
- Symptoms of colon cancer from a woman diagnosed at age 40
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