| Newsletter Summer 2003
Colon Cancer – The Preventable Disease
Meet longtime Cashmere resident Lucy Kenoyer. Her husband Jerry has worked at Blue Star growers for 48 years. They raised three boys and a girl, all grown now with children of their own. Most days the grandchildren come  to Lucy’s house after school for cookies and company. Lucy is around these days to spend time with her family, thanks to colon cancer screening.
“Colon cancer is a very preventable disease,” says gastroenterologist Alan Smith, MD. “We think that colon cancer starts as polyps. It’s rare for colon cancer to just arrive in an otherwise healthy colon.”
Lucy was 65 when her doctor suggested she be screened. “She thought that maybe it was time to have one,” says Lucy, “I didn’t have any symptoms.” Lucy had a sigmoidoscopy, which allows the physician to look at the inside of the large intestine from the rectum through the last part of the colon. However, the sigmoidoscopy isn’t extensive enough to examine the entire area, or allow the removal of polyps. Lucy’s sigmoidoscopy detected a polyp.
“Dr. Smith said I would have to come back for a colonoscopy,” Lucy recalls.
The colonoscopy lets the physician examine the entire large intestine.
“We do colonoscopies looking for colon polyps, to remove them when they’re small and easily removed, and prevent cancer development,” says Dr. Smith.
“That’s when they found the mass in my colon,” remembers Lucy. “He thought it was cancerous, because it was so big. They took a little piece and sent it to the lab. It was cancer.”
Lucy underwent surgery a week later, followed by six months of chemotherapy. As she looks back now, she recalls that there was colon cancer in her family – her aunt died of the disease. That put her in the high-risk category.
“If there is no family history of colon cancer or polyps,” says Dr. Smith, "you’re considered normal risk, and screening should start at age 50. People who have a family member with colon cancer or polyps, especially families that have colon cancer in young or multiple family members - or multiple generations - are high risk. If your mother had a colon cancer at 48, you should consider a colonoscopy at age 38,” says Smith, “Or if your sister had a colon cancer you’d sort of hot-foot it in and get checked.”
When you decide to have a colonoscopy, what can you expect?“The day before is the worst time,” says Lucy. “You have to take laxatives to clean yourself out.”
Your colon must be completely empty for the colonoscopy to be thorough and safe. You will need someone to escort and drive you. The procedure itself usually takes 20 to 30 minutes. During the actual colonoscopy you’ll be sedated.
“We have quite a bit of latitude with sedation,” says Dr. Smith. “Some people don’t want to be sleepy, and we give them a little to take the edge off. Other people don’t want to know a thing, so we adjust the dose depending on the patient’s wishes.”
The physician will insert a long, flexible, lighted tube called a colonoscope into your rectum and slowly guide it into your colon. The scope transmits an image of the inside of the colon, so the physician can carefully examine the lining of the colon. If anything abnormal is seen in your colon, like a polyp or inflamed tissue, the physician can remove all or part of it using tiny instruments passed through the scop
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