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Have the guts to Guard Your Backside! Colorectal cancer awareness

Have the guts to Guard Your Backside! Colorectal cancer awareness. March 1, 2013 Michel Plemmons. What CRC is. Colorectal cancer is a slow-growing cancer that begins as a polyp in the colon or rectum.

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Have the guts to Guard Your Backside! Colorectal cancer awareness

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  1. Have the guts to Guard Your Backside!Colorectal cancer awareness March 1, 2013 Michel Plemmons

  2. What CRC is Colorectal cancer is a slow-growing cancer that begins as a polyp in the colon or rectum. It has to get through the wall of the colon/rectum before it can attack other parts of the body. It is easily stopped if it’s found in time!

  3. Who’s at risk Conventional wisdom is that we should start checking for colorectal cancer in your 50s. Most of those who are at risk younger have some family link – there are two main genetic vulnerability tracks. That said, many who get CRC younger are NOT in any detectable high risk group.

  4. Family links • Family links: • Colon coded wrong (85%) • Spellchecker wrong (15%) • http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/about/webinars

  5. Fully Preventable All it takes to stop CRC is a colonoscopy. You see a polyp, you snip the polyp, end of story. You see a tumor in stages 0, 1 or 2, you remove the tumor, end of story.

  6. Better Chances I shared an infusion center with a lot of pissed-off healthniks. That said, here’s what data shows: Less red meat, more fiber – especially nonsoluble fiber: gut scrubbers! More exercise, less weight THAT said, fixing things doesn’t get you out of any of it, so they’re NOT confident it’s causal.

  7. Colonoscopy: good, bad, icky • You make an appointment – a month or two out. • You go on a progressively lower fiber diet for a few days, working your way down to clear liquids. • You drink a nasty-tasting solution that clears out your digestive system. Fast. • You show up with a driver, go to sleep, get scoped. • You wake up, go home and EAT SOMETHING GOOD! • You may be told right then that they found something • They will have snipped it if they could • If they couldn’t, they’ll want to look at it more with MRI or CT, and figure out how they want to remove it.

  8. Treatment Surgery: they will remove the colon section, and the lymph nodes along that section. They will determine what the next step is by how that tumor and any lymph tumors look. Within Stage III, it’s a numbers game for levels and the outcomes they expect. Chemotherapy: toxic chemicals that kill everything that grows fast. You’ll be tired, numb, cold sensitive. Radiation: mostly for rectal, jokes about sunburned butts. It can target a specific area. Similar tiredness and immunity.

  9. Outcomes Recovery from treatment – depends on what. Months to years, really. Battle scars, inside and out. Those last longer. Dancing with cancer… the realities as I find them http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/lanes.png …did I mention it’s better to get them found early?

  10. What YOU should do: • If you’re in your 40s, PUSH for a colonoscopy. • Any older, suck it up and get your colonoscopy. • If you have any inkling of a problem, go to you doctor and PUSH for answers. “internal hemmorhoids” is NOT a good enough answer without proof. “IBS” is NOT a good enough answer without proof. • Dark stool, pain, change in bowel habits, constipation that isn’t what you ate… anything that doesn’t go away.

  11. Resources Stage pic:http://www.metrohealth.org/images/Patient%20Services/Cancer%20Care%20Center/colon_cancer.jpg Targets pic, but add ovaries for females: http://www.qualityoflife.org/memorialCMS/images/cancer/full/CDR0000415499.jpg Stage, targets pic I used http://www.mayoclinic.com/images/image_popup/c7_crcstage.jpg More info: http://www.ccalliance.org/http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001308/ http://www.cancer.org/cancer/colonandrectumcancer/index

  12. Appendix (Well, sorta…) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZp9c3hIeSM These were MY oncology nurses! …and this is how I remember them:

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