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NWT - Sharon Low said it’s interesting how we view life before being diagnosed with cancer.

“Before diagnosis we take our mortality for granted,” the 37-year-old colon cancer survivor said. “But after diagnosis we fight with everything we’ve got to stay alive. If we can reverse that we would be eliminating a lot of the cancers out there.”

Sharon Low, with her children Jasmine and Justin, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at the age of 34. Now two years post-chemotherapy, Low doesn’t take one day for granted and believes prevention is the most important thing to avoiding the long and difficult road she had to travel. - photo courtesy of the Canadian Cancer Society

The mother of two was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 34, a diagnosis considered by some to be rare, the majority of colon cancer diagnoses happen later in life.

“They were pretty shocked actually because all along, after seeing the surgeon for the initial consultation they said I was too young for cancer,” she said. “When he told me I had it, I can remember the look on his face, he was really surprised by it.” They were also surprised her was in an advanced stage. Subsequently, Low had a bad section of her colon removed followed by eight months of chemotherapy treatment, something Low said was hard on her.

“The drug I was on makes you sensitive to cold,” she said. “I started chemo in January and finished in November, so a couple of strong winter months. My feet would go numb the second I stepped outside, or my hands as soon as the cold hit my skin. I had to be careful about that.”

Now two years post chemo, Low’s story is an example of why people should be aware of colon cancer. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, on average, 32 people (18 men; 14 women) will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer every week in Alberta/NWT. On average, 12 people (seven men; five women) will die of colorectal cancer weekly. Lauren Bulckaert, community services co-ordinator for the Canadian Cancer Society in the NWT, said early detection of colorectal cancer is the goal of their campaign, which coincides with Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.

“It’s a general theme on building awareness on colorectal cancer, mainly the high survival rates if it’s caught early,” she said. “The message is to go out and encourage doctors to tell people about the risk of developing the cancer and the screening options.

“People don’t want to talk because it’s embarrassing, especially in smaller communities.”

Dr. John Morse, an NWT internist, said it’s one of the most common forms of cancer in Canada and is particularly common in the Beaufort-Delta and Dehcho regions. But, it's also one of the more preventable forms of cancer.

“It’s ideally suited for screening,” he said. “It generally doesn’t start as cancer it starts as a polyp. It takes on average 10 years for the polyp to form so you have a long window of opportunity to remove them. Through removing it, it can be prevented.”

Morse said detecting the cancer before any symptoms appear -- like blood in the stool -- treatment can be 90 per cent successful. He said the problem is only about 10 per cent of people take a preventative strategy.

“It’s the yuck factor with talking about your bowel movements,” he said. “The most common type of testing is retrieving samples of your stool. If you follow through with that kind of strategy it will be picked up early and it’s a low cost, zero-risk strategy and it’s effective.”

Morse said there is no real way to determine how people get colon cancer, but there are contributing factors.

“It’s an interaction with what we eat and our environment,” he said. “We know diets that are low in fibre and high in fat, particularly animal fat are more likely to cause colon cancer. It’s one of these association things.

Morse remembers an aboriginal elder who once told him something he believes makes sense.

“We should all eat food from where we are born, not imported food,” he said. “There is a bad interaction between aboriginal people and western diets. If you can eat more local game, caribou, moose and fish, from your region and not by store-bought meat it’s a start. It’s very doable.”

People should start getting screened when they turn 50, but Morse said if there is a family history of colon cancer, especially in siblings, mothers or fathers, they should be screened at younger age, usually within 10 years of that person’s age.

“Prevention is the best thing,” Low said. “It was interesting, while I was going through it, I was doing everything to fight to be alive. I went through painful surgery and recovery and sickening chemo treatments that affected every part of my body.

“Once you’ve been diagnosed, life is just not the same again. I live my life now knowing one day it’s going to end whereas before I lived it like I was going to live forever and these little things I did didn’t matter. Prevention is the easiest thing we can do. By eating certain foods and not eating as much red meat and focusing on healthy lifestyles and exercise you can avoid it all together.”