Robin Gibb, Ronald Regan, Elizabeth Montgomery, Audrey Hepburn, Vince Lombardi, and Jay Monahan are all famous people affected by colorectal cancer and have since passed away.
If you think your life is too busy to be inconvenienced by the prep or scheduling for a colonoscopy, you may want to reconsider. According to the American Cancer Society, 52,980 people passed away in 2021 from colorectal cancer. In 2021, 4,000 more males than females passed away from the disease. Personally, I will not forget as a teenager my mom’s friend sharing her colon cancer diagnosis with us. She was only 42 years old at the time. She did not win her battle and left behind two teenage daughters.
When I turned 50 years old, it was one of the first things I scheduled that year. Yes, I too, have heard the negative stories about the prep and procedure, but it was not bad for me. I was later relieved that the colonoscopy procedure was painless and quick. If you think you can’t get colorectal cancer because you are generally healthy, an athlete, or a driven professional, you may want to reconsider after reviewing the names at the beginning of this message.
Please encourage your friends and family to talk about the screening and to take action by scheduling their colonoscopy. JMHS will be wearing Blue this Friday to bring awareness to this deadly disease and prevention methods. We would invite you to do the same. There are no butt’s about it; colonoscopies save lives.
Kris Jacobson, LNHA, LALD, MBA
JMHS Interim CEO