Screening for your own protection

Jan 29, 2017 News

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By Sharmain Grainger

There are many challenges that face the health sectors of the world. But the notion that is

continually being touted is that individuals should seek to take responsibility for their own health. While eating healthy and exercising are among the key elements that can help to promote good health, the importance of undergoing thorough medical screening, at least once, annually can never be overemphasized.
Screening for the various types of cancers is among the measures highly recommended by doctors.
Cancer from time immemorial has been rated as one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), tobacco use has been listed as the most important risk factor for cancer globally. The organisation has been able to deduce, too, that the five most common sites that cancer is diagnosed in men are: lung, prostate, colorectum, stomach and liver. The breast, cervix, stomach, lung and colorectum are the main areas that cancer is diagnosed in women.
Moreover, WHO has asserted that “cancer is a generic term for a large group of diseases that can affect any part of the body. Other terms used are malignant tumours and neoplasms. But one defining feature of cancer is the rapid creation of abnormal cells that grow beyond their usual boundaries, and which can then invade adjoining parts of the body and spread to other organs, the latter process is referred to as metastasizing. Metastases are the major cause of death from cancer.”
Many people are understandably very wary of this disease. But particularly troubling is that even though people may deliberately embrace a great deal of health conscious activities, these may not be able to thwart the development of cancer.
Cancer is certainly no respecter of persons. It has no regard for race, creed, complexion or status for that matter. An individual can be predisposed to cancer for a number of reasons including the fact that it may already be in their genes, that is, a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, or all of them might have developed cancer at some point in their life.
In such a case, future generations will have to be alert and take care.
But one of the notions that has been amplified throughout the years, whether your family is predisposed or not, is that regular screening could allow for early diagnosis, prompt treatment and by extension, help to reduce the mortality rate linked to cancer.
Usually women are more inclined to embrace the practice of early screening. In fact it is well known that the majority of men are far more likely to seek medical attention after they develop some form of complication.
Leroy Rodney can attest to this state of affairs quite well.
However, this did not mean that he wasn’t aware that the possibility existed that he could become a victim of cancer. You see Rodney, now 67, recalled that his father was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and had subsequently passed away, because of complications he developed.
“I knew about prostate cancer and I used to check for that because my dad died from that,” recounted the Waterloo Street, Georgetown resident. But each year he’d check there was no sign of prostate cancer.
The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that makes most of the semen that carries sperm. The walnut-sized gland is located beneath the bladder in the male anatomy and surrounds the upper part of the urethra, the tube that carries urine from the bladder.
Among the signs and symptoms of prostate cancer are: burning or pain during urination; difficulty urinating, or trouble starting and stopping while urinating; more frequent urges to urinate at night; loss of bladder control; decreased flow or velocity of urine stream and blood in urine.
Rodney never developed any of these signs and symptoms. He, however, recalled that it was around 2013 he started to suffer from constant diarrhoea. There was simply no explanation for the constant diarrhoea he suffered. The condition was so severe that he had to seek medical attention.
Doctors simply prescribed antibiotics and other treatment but were never really able to ascertain the root cause of the problem.
But before long, Rodney was no longer suffering from diarrhoea. This should have been great news, but it wasn’t. He, almost immediately, started to experience severe constipation.
“I had to go back for medical attention; I went to public, private hospitals too. I went everywhere for help,” recalled Rodney. He was eventually advised to undergo a colonoscopy.
Colonoscopy is a test that allows a doctor to look at the inner lining of the large intestine (rectum and colon). He or she uses a thin, flexible tube called a colonoscope to look at the colon. A colonoscopy helps find ulcers, colon polyps, tumours, and areas of inflammation or bleeding.
Rodney revealed that after much probing, a blockage was found in his rectum and a sample was removed to be sent for further examination. The sample was found to be cancerous.
Rodney was essentially diagnosed with colon cancer, a form of cancer that can develop in males as well as females. The cancer was well advanced (stage four) and required that he undergo surgery urgently.
His surgery was conducted at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) on July 7, 2016. From all indications it was a success and Rodney is on the road to recovery.
Regular chemotherapy offered at the Oncology Unit of the GPHC is currently a requirement for his recovery. He is confident that after he makes a full recovery he will be able to resume activities that he was forced to put on hold because of the complications he developed as a result of colon cancer.
Today, Rodney is not hesitating to tell people, his fellow men, and women too, that simply by being screened a great deal of medical hardship could be averted. He recalled that he had all the tell-tale signs of colon cancer long before he was diagnosed.
Topping the list of the signs and symptoms of the disease is a change in bowel habits, including diarrhea or constipation or a change in the consistency of stool that lasts longer than four weeks. Rodney’s symptoms had continued for years before he was finally diagnosed.
However, research suggests that many people who develop colon cancer have no signs or symptoms during its early stages.
“I think people should get screened early…even if you have no signs or symptoms,” Rodney preached last week from his chemotherapy chair. He said that he has since learnt that people, even with no history of cancer, should especially seek to be thoroughly screened when they hit the age of 50.
“If you catch it early, at stage one, you can have it treated and get things done early and you may not even have to do surgery,” Rodney announced as he considered how he had to learn his screening lesson “the very hard way”.

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