My unglamorous but curable disease
February was Colorectal Cancer Awareness month, which took me by surprise since I was diagnosed with the disease this past fall.
Unlike breast cancer, which rightly receives abundant media attention each October with its annual campaigns organized to increase awareness and fundraising, colorectal cancer awareness remains on the sidelines despite being the third leading cause of cancerrelated deaths. In its early stages, colorectal cancer is one of the most curable. It’s recommended that colon cancer screening should begin at age 50 for most people. If there are no risk factors and nothing unusual is found, your next colonoscopy should be repeated in 10 years. If any small growths, called polyps, are removed during the procedure your doctor may advise you to return every three to five years for follow-up screenings.
It had been slightly over 10 years since I’d had a colonoscopy.
There was no reason to believe anything was seriously amiss. I’d noticed occasional blood spots on tissues but attributed that to the probable development of hemorrhoids. Otherwise, I was fit. I exercise pretty regularly, and my husband and I have eaten a mostly vegetarian diet for almost 20 years. People with a healthy lifestyle – I thought – do not get colon cancer.
But there I was, emerging from the fog of the light anesthesia from the procedure, presented with the news that a four-centimeter tumor was found, and that I should return first thing the following morning for a CAT scan. Days later I received an endoscopic ultrasound
The key is catching it early while more palatable treatment options are still on the table.
those two gentlemen.”
Johnson flew to Philadelphia to personally apologize to the two men and meet with others to discuss how “a painful incident can become a vehicle for positive change.”
He also ordered every Starbucks location, including those in Greater Memphis, to close on the afternoon of May 29 for racial bias training. And good for him.
But let’s not completely excuse the Philadelphia police officers. The city’s police commissioner, who is black, has insisted his officers did nothing wrong. But police have wide discretion when they are called to a scene.
They were not obligated to arrest these men, who by all accounts were not creating a disturbance. Doing so also makes the officers vulnerable to allegations of implicit bias, and feeds the notion that handcuffs and a squad car are the only ways to deal with black people in any dispute — large or small.
The bottom line is, horrendous acts of brutality should not be the only times that we engage in public conversations over race.
And if you think this debate is petty and much ado about nothing, I encourage you to read the Kirwan Institute’s study, or any other scholarly work on unconscious and implicit bias, which permeates every facet of our lives.
Otis Sanford holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis. Contact him at 901-678-3669 or at o.sanford@memphis.edu. Follow him on Twitter @otissanford and watch his commentaries weekdays on WATN Local 24 News at 5 p.m.