(2 of 6)
Before you start thinking, "Just what we need, another gimmicky disease of the month," stop to consider how much good such a campaign can do. There are probably more myths and misconceptions about colon cancer than about any other killer disease. Young people think only old people get it. Women think only men get it. African Americans think only whites get it. (In fact, American blacks are at greater risk than whites, and the disease strikes men and women, young and old.)
And the rest of us--mired in inhibitions that date back to our toilet training--don't even want to think about it. Potty talk is for two-year-olds, not grownups. The idea of a full-scale colon exam (You're going to stick that thing where?) scares most Americans away from the very screening test that could save their life. Is it any wonder that 99% of Americans, when asked to name a potentially fatal disease, don't think of colorectal cancer (according to a survey released last week on Capitol Hill)?
That sort of reticence proved deadly for the late Charles Schulz, beloved creator of Peanuts, who resisted being tested despite the fact that his mother, two uncles and an aunt died of colon cancer. By the time physicians discovered his tumor last fall, it had spread to his stomach lining, and there was little they could do.
Even when our own doctor tells us to get our colon checked, we don't always listen. A year and a half ago, Florence Seguin, 73, of Williamsburg, Va., shrugged off her physician's recommendation that she undergo a colonoscopy, a procedure in which a doctor inserts a flexible lighted tube into the colon to look for abnormal growths. A former nun and the adoptive mother of a 13-year-old boy, Seguin knew that one of her brothers had died of colon cancer, but it wasn't until she saw an article about Couric and Monahan that she stopped procrastinating. Fortunately, the tumor that her doctors found was still small enough to be surgically removed. Says Seguin: "I don't know how many more times I would have canceled or postponed the colonoscopy if I hadn't read that article."
No one expects stories like Seguin's to make up for the loss Couric has experienced, but they do bring her a measure of satisfaction. "It's difficult every day without Jay," Couric says. "But it's not difficult to do this, because I feel that if I can save even one family the heartbreak that mine went through, it's worth it."
If you're serious about protecting yourself and your loved ones against colorectal cancer, it will help to know something about the disease. Nearly all colon cancers start as polyps, tiny grapelike projections that sprout on the inside of the large intestine. Most of the time these growths are benign, but occasionally a collection of cells--through a series of genetic mishaps--will get bigger and bigger until it turns into a tumor. About 25% of these malignant growths are triggered by a genetic predisposition that has been present since birth. The rest of the time, normal genes become damaged with age or exposure to the toxic brew of wastes that collect in the colon.