Be sure to get screened for colon cancer

As surgeons who have been preventing and treating colorectal cancer for the past 40 years in Chico, we are calling attention to March as Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.

Like other cancers that occur inside the body, hidden from easy-to-detect signs, colon cancer is a tumor that is not easily identified unless one goes looking for it. Indeed, the first presenting signs or symptoms are often seen in someone with late stage disease. When blood is visualized in the stool, change in bowel habits is noticed, or pain or weight loss is experienced, the disease often requires not only surgery, but often chemotherapy and/or radiation, and even then it can be metastatic, or widespread through the body.

We know the dangers of apathy, or not caring, in many areas of society. Civic mindedness. Politics and the duty to vote. Civil service and military service.

Apathy with regards to cancers that can be detected in early stages, prevented with routine screening, and treated well when discovered early is a similar danger to the healthy patient. The expectation that “I feel well”, or “I don’t need to see a doctor” will protect you against a silent disease that is the second most common cancer in both genders is tragic. Too often, patients say “if I’d only know that I needed to get a colonoscopy, I would have done it.”

So, this March, we ask our neighbors, friends, colleagues, and patients — have you done everything you can to prevent colon cancer from harming you? Have you had a colonoscopy starting at age 45 and every 10 years to check for and remove polyps to prevent cancer? If you have family members with colon cancer or polyps, have you had a colonoscopy at age 35 and a follow up every five years? Have you had stool studies such as cologuard or fecal blood testing if you haven’t had a colonoscopy or can’t find a way to get one scheduled?

We have dedicated our careers to fixing the sick colons of Chico. Our failure to get everyone screened becomes a heavy burden when we see patients with late stage and fatal cancer diagnoses instead of early and easy to treat tumors.

This March, instead of Apathy we ask all Chico residents with a colon to consider Action. Get screened for colon cancer any way you can. Speak with your primary care provider about ways to be checked. See the website for our professional organization fascrs.org for information. Or visit Valor Oncology to discuss testing.

The life you save could be your own.

Respectfully yours,