I Know the answer to my question is because it involves our crapper. I was watching an episode of reality TV "Giuliana & Bill". She is a TV personality and host of E! News. He won the first season of "The Apprentice" and they are married.
Giuliana has had a bad year with the discovery of Breast Cancer. She first had a double lumpectomy and after testing for the type of cancer had a second operation for a double mastectomy with reconstruction. She's tall and thin and I think a great person.
As I watch the shows and see all the support she receives from their families, friends and co-workers I am happy she has all of the support. I think she's brave for going in front of the TV cameras on shows like the Today show, et al and tells her story. She is a great advocate.
She is not the first or will she be the last to share about breast cancer. No one talked about it much when I was growing up and I didn't even know about it until after High School. I'm from the pepsi generation - 70's.
Now to us. We know and have heard of celebrities, newscasters, sports stars and others that have had colon cancer, FAP and or IBD. The only people I recall hearing about this didn't attract the attention that other diseases do. One was Farrah Faucet and we all know how sad that ended. Her struggle was captured in a documentary but we didn't know anything other than rectal cancer and experimental treatment. We didn't hear about operations or choices. It was basically if you get this you suffer and die. At least it brought out some awareness.
There was Katie Couric's husband who died from colon cancer before that and she has done a marvelous job getting the word out about colonoscopies. Again we are at the Cancer stage before it comes out.
Sharron Osbourne had colon cancer and I know of at least one surgery that generated some awareness on the end of their reality show. Again it was to the cancer stage.
I wish there were more people in the public eye that felt good about discussing the diseases that can end up causing cancer as well. From my experience no one is familiar with what UC is until I tell them. I had a team in a walk and contacted our family and friends for donations so at least they have heard of UC and Crohns. They don't want to hear the details and some still don't want to get colonoscopies for very lame reasons.
There are a lot of people with good blogs about their experiences and trying to educate others but I'm afraid their audience is mostly other folks going through the same things.
The diseases are more rare than Brest cancer, for example. I wish someone would make a good documentary or movie about the subject so people wouldn't think of us as freaks, people that didn't follow good diets, or other dumb reasons they think causes or cures these problems.
I donate to breast cancer too as we lost a very special person in our lives to it. She was my husbands mother and if she's known to have mammograms back in 1975 they might have caught her cancer. She showed me her scars after her surgeries and made me promise that I would get regular mammograms as she didn't want me to end up like her.
I just hope that in the next decade or so that Butt diseases gain awareness so people will know the signs when they first appear. Also that others won't be looking at us all as if we can pass along cooties with poop problems. Like when HIV came out any everybody was afraid to hug a person with AIDS.
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