To save those lives, the U.S. Congress, prompted by more than 30 health groups, has designated March as Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. For her part, Couric, starting March 6, will be host of a week-long series about the disease on the Today show. In what must be a television first, she will broadcast footage of her own intestine, taken during a recent colon exam. There are probably more myths and misconceptions about colon cancer than about any other killer disease. Young people think only old people get it.
Women think only men get it.
African Americans think only whites get it. That sort of reticence proved deadly for the late Charles Schulz, beloved creator of Peanuts, who resisted being tested despite the fact that his mother, two uncles and an aunt died of colon cancer. By the time physicians discovered his tumor last fall, it had spread to his stomach lining, and there was little they could do. Even when our own doctor tells us to get our colon checked, we don't always listen. Fortunately, the tumor that her doctors found was still small enough to be surgically removed.