Bowel cancer awareness month

Whether you’re a man or woman, young or old, it’s important for you to get to know your body (including the parts of it that are rarely spoken about) because cancer doesn’t discriminate in terms of where it hits. We all need to come together and scrap the shame and stigma around below-the-belt cancers and talk about them more openly and help others to communicatively do the same.

To mark June as being bowel cancer awareness month in Australia, I’d like to thank the following celebrities: Erin Molan, Gina Liano, George Calombaris and Ita Buttrose for lending their name to help us better understand this disease.

In honour of those lost to the disease, we love and miss you very much but wholeheartedly know you’re in a better place and are blessed. We know that we can still talk to you and connect with you through our prayers, pictures and our fondest memories of you.  

In honour of those in remission from it, we celebrate with you and ask that you pay it forward and help others by becoming pre-and-post cancer support companions; by sharing your experiences with it and all the wisdom that you’ve learnt throughout your journey.

In honour of those newly diagnosed with the disease, we promise to do everything in our power to help you through this and eradicate the stigma attached to all the below-the-belt cancers. Don’t let cancer shame you of loving your body. One’s cancer journey can feel so overwhelming when the bad days of treatment kick in, so it’s good to think of who else you’re fighting to survive for and/or always give yourself something that you wholeheartedly feel is worthwhile to look forward to and draw motivational strength from. Always remember that you’re stronger than you think, and know that something as menacing as cancer doesn’t have the mental power to control, beat and/or consume you, unless you let it.

If you have a family history of bowel cancer, then you should start getting tested when you reach the age of 40 or earlier. If not, then you should start getting tested at the age of 50 by asking your doctor for the bowel-screening test kit as soon as possible, because early detection can and will save lives.

At your discretion, please give generously to Bowel Cancer Australia this June on https://www.bowelcanceraustralia.org/donate .