08:40 PM
Saturday 08 April 2023
I wrote-Yasmine El Sawy:
A woman with colon cancer decided to warn everyone not to ignore the early signs of the disease, especially among young people, after she contracted it in her thirties.
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Candace Henley, who is now 55 years old, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at the age of 35, while this disease often affects the elderly.
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Experts warn that the average age of diagnosis is getting younger.
“I will do everything I can to save another person from the trauma that my family and I have been through,” Henley said, explaining that at the time of her diagnosis, she was in so much daily abdominal pain that she had difficulty standing.
“One of my cousins told me we had to go to the emergency unit,” Henley added.
Henley created the Blue Hat Foundation in 2015 in hopes of raising awareness of this disease and its early signs.
She continued, “We must do our part to help improve the health of our society, and it is not enough to complain and wait.”
Also read: From your stool – how to find out if you have colon cancer at home?
Symptoms of colon cancer
Blood in the stool. This seems to be the most common early sign of colon cancer.
A change in bowel habits, so that the patient suffers from constipation or diarrhea for long periods.
Cold fingers and toes, as a result of insufficient blood supply to the extremities.
Abdominal pain, due to tumor growth.
Lose weight quickly without following a diet.
Colon cancer can be treated in the early stages before it spreads, with 91% of people diagnosed in the early stages of the disease surviving for at least 5 years.
The risk of death increases exponentially as the disease progresses, once it spreads to other organs and reaches distant parts of the body, the chance of survival drops to only 14%.