As I clicked on Fox News' website this morning, I read with great sadness that Tony Snow had died of colon cancer after a long battle. Many of you may not know who he is unless you're a news junkie like me, but he was Bush's White House Press Secretary before having to resign due to his illness. I hear so much about people dying of colon cancer, yet I didn't. I cry every time I hear of someone dying from it. Tony Snow had his entire colon removed; I only had a section removed with the tumor. When I lay in the hospital last July, Tammy Faye Bakker Messner died after a *ten year* battle with it. She was a shell of herself as I watched her on Larry King Live just days before her death. 18 months ago a colleague at work's father died after it had spread throughout his body. Both he and Tammy Faye didn't go to the doctor right after their symptoms; I don't know about Mr. Snow.
The key here is to know your body and get to the doctor as soon as anything changes--a mole, bowel habits, a lump. I am so blessed and I know that, especially since the doctor said my 7cm. tumor had probably been growing 7-10 years, which means it started in my 30s. The cancer center will monitor my blood every three months for 3 years and then less often after that. I will have a colonoscopy a year for 3 years.
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