“My dad was 54 years old when he passed away,” says Porchia Toussaint, who was 31 when she learned her dad had stage 4 colon cancer. “His doctor told my brother and I that because we were his kids, we needed to get follow-up colonoscopies. I had no idea what a colonoscopy was. It was an interesting process. The actual procedure was fine. They put me to sleep and when I woke up the doctor said, ‘You did great. We didn’t find anything.’ They found two polyps in my brother, which they removed.”
Polyps in the colon can potentially become colon cancer. “They said to repeat getting a colonoscopy every five years,” Toussaint says. “It’s preventive care, since colon cancer is slow-growing. My brother and I now go for regular colonoscopies. I think you should get tested, especially if it runs in your family. I have my colonoscopy next week and hopefully, they say it’s all clear and to come back in five years.”
