I'm Trying to Change the Way Black Men Talk About Colon Cancer
The men in my family didn’t talk about cancer. My dad and grandfather had colon cancer. Several of my uncles had cancer. In fact, my dad was in his 40s when he was diagnosed, so my brothers and I should have been getting screened in our 30s. I didn’t know I should have been doing that until after my diagnosis at the age of 43. Doctors recommend all Black men start screening for colon cancer at age 45, younger if you have a family history (typically it’s ten years before the age your parent or sibling was first diagnosed).
At the time, I was an avid Harley rider and a member of the Klutch N’ Khrome motorcycle club, and I’d had a lawn-care business in Douglasville, a small town near Atlanta, for 12 years. In the summer of 2016, I noticed that an hour or two of working outside left me feeling unusually tired—like an old cell-phone battery that could never charge to 100 percent. I went to the doctor for a checkup and was cleared, but I knew something wasn’t right. I couldn’t keep telling myself it was just my weight making me sluggish.
That September, I told my wife I needed to go back to the doctor. He reviewed my charts and sent me for more blood work. The morning after, a nurse was on the phone telling me not to go to work and to go straight to the hospital, because my hemoglobin was dangerously low. The doctor found a large mass in my colon—it was stage III colon cancer. I had a partial colectomy to remove the segment of my colon with the cancer.
Why had the doctor missed this the first time? Maybe it was because I didn’t know what to look for. I never heard the men in my family talk about their cancer. I was in college when my dad had his first bout with cancer, but I didn’t find out until years later.
Historically, Black men just don’t talk about being sick. I had blood in my stool—a major symptom I tell others to look out for—for a while before I went to the doctor. I don’t know how long I had been seeing it—I was in denial. Fear kept me from going, but I wasn’t going to let it keep me from talking about my symptoms and treatment.
Before my first of 12 chemotherapy sessions, I looked my wife in the eyes, remembering the way she folded onto the hospital-room floor in sorrow after my diagnosis, and told her I was going to beat cancer and then ride my motorcycle. We turned that into #beatcancerthenride, and I vlogged my journey from diagnosis to treatment to now. The silence stopped there.
Through that hashtag, I’ve been able to connect with men around the country who want to know what symptoms to look for. I tell them to take any changes in their bowel habits seriously, because early detection is key. Ultimately, my goal is to organize a ride to raise money for colon-cancer awareness, but in the meantime, this simple hashtag has accomplished a lot. It’s allowed me to talk to others through their concerns, and it’s shown other Black men that Black men can and do talk about colon cancer and their health in general. Most important, my own sons know their risk because I didn’t hide my cancer journey like the men in my family before me.
In May 2017, after seven months of chemotherapy, I had beaten cancer and it was time to ride the 2,100 miles from Atlanta to South Padre Island and back for Bike Week. In the fresh air, with blue skies and palm trees overhead and my wife by my side like she’s always been, I rode my motorcycle. I was okay. I was free, and I thanked God.
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