Saturday, March 26th 2022, 8:06 pm
March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. To raise awareness, more than 100 people showed up at the inaugural Colon Cancer Awareness Walk in Scissortail Park.
“Anytime the population, the citizens of a nation come together and do a public display of unity, a public display of desire and hope, it makes me feel good and it brought back really good memories about the possibilities of this nation and this country,” Sen. George Young said.
Brittney Arrey said she remembers how far she's come in the last five years with every step.
“I'm 22, I’m in college, I'm having fun and here I was being told that my life would be changing right before my eyes. This walk was so important because a lot of us tend to think that will never be me and that will never be my story until it is,” Arrey said.
Arrey said she's now 27 and she has been cancer-free for about five years.
“I have learned that life comes at you fast, to not take things lightly, to eat better,” Arrey said.
She wants others to learn more about cancer and know that it is preventable, treatable, and beatable.
“We know that physical inactivity, food that is rich in red meat, that all increases your risk of colon cancer. There's a big genetic factor that you cannot modify and that's why it's very important to get screened,” Dr. Tauseef Ali said.
The Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America organized the walk. Doctors that attended said in some cases people with colon cancer can be asymptomatic and it doesn't discriminate.
“It's a fairly common cancer. As I said, one-third of the deaths in this country are related to colon cancer,” Dr. Ram Singh said.
Medical professionals recommend getting a colon cancer screening at 45, but if you have a history of it in your family, they suggest you talk to your physician sooner.
March 26th, 2022
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