Katie's Crusade

TED THAI FOR TIME
INSIDE VIEW: Dr. Moshe Shike of Memorial Sloan-Kettering conducts a guided tour of a patient's colon

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Whatever you do, don't let embarrassment stand in the way of your health. When Brenda Billingsley of Wilmington, Del., developed abdominal pains two years ago at age 48, she told her doctors about most of her symptoms. But she never talked about the way her stools had changed shape (and she wasn't asked). The pains must be menopause, the doctors decided. Then a year ago, during a flexible sigmoidoscopy, a physician discovered a tumor the size of a golf ball that had begun to spread. Aggressive treatment seems to have left Billingsley cancer free. Now she's on a mission to persuade family and friends to be screened. "I just goad them until they do it," she says. Katie Couric would be proud.