CANCER SCREENING SAVES LIVES. Stop what you are doing and schedule a breast, cervical, lung, prostate, colorectal cancer screening today! In Episode 56 of the Shining Brightly Podcast Show (links in the comments), titled “CANCER SCREEN WEEK is DECEMBER 4-9, 2023! I MC a solo show about the importance of cancer screening. The statistics are insane! Especially for underserved populations. Young onset cancer is on the rise in colorectal cancer. Like me a cancer diagnosis, treatment and survivorship can change your life and can affect your family, work and future. I support cancer research and screening! GO GET SCREENED – CANCER SUX and we need you to be healthy to shine brightly for yourself, others and in your communities!
Mentioned Resources -
https://www.cancerscreenweek.org/
About the guest – Howard Brown and Cancer Resiliency - As his successful career was unfolding, Howard inspired all those who knew him by beating stage IV cancer twice. Even though doctors warned him that he likely would die, Howard nevertheless conquered particularly aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma early in his career and in recent years overcame advanced metastatic colon cancer. Now, he uses his experience as a national cancer advocate, spokesperson and resiliency coach to shine a light on cancer prevention, early diagnosis, precision medicine and patient centricity. He has been recognized for his service by many organizations, including the Colon Cancer Coalition, ColorectalCancer Alliance, Stand Up to Cancer, Man Up to Cancer and is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Colontown.org. He also was selected to participate in the Scientist-Survivor program of the American Association of Cancer Research as an advocate mentor.
About the Host:
Howard Brown is a best-selling author, award-winning international speaker, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, interfaith peacemaker, and a two-time stage IV cancer survivor. He is also a sought-after speaker and consultant for corporate businesses, nonprofits, congregations, and community groups. Howard has co-founded two social networks that were the first to connect religious communities around the world. He is a nationally known patient advocate and “cancer whisperer” to many families. Howard, his wife Lisa, and daughter Emily currently reside in Michigan, and his happy place is on the basketball court.
Website
Http://www.shiningbrightly.com
Social Media
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/howard.brown.36
LinkedIn - https://wwwlinkedin.com/in/howardsbrown
Instagram - @howard.brown.36
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#gcancer #screening #cancerscreenweek #americancancersociety #genentech #optum#standuptocancer #breastcacner #cervicalcancer #lungcancer #prostatecancer #colorectalcancer #coloncancer #life #death #healthcare #motivation #education #inspiration #podcast #download listen #share #reveiw #shiningbrightly
Hello, it's Howard brown. It's the shining brightly
Howard Brown:show, you get me solo today, and I have a very important show and
Howard Brown:message to shout out to all of you. And December 4 through the
Howard Brown:eighth is cancer screen week, the website's cancer screen
Howard Brown:week.org. And it's very important cause for me, I'm an
Howard Brown:ambassador for the second year in a row. And I take that role
Howard Brown:and responsibility very seriously. As many of my
Howard Brown:listeners and audience know, I'm a two time stage four cancer
Howard Brown:survivor. And if I would have been screened maybe at age 40,
Howard Brown:or 42, for colorectal cancer, I might have not had it or I might
Howard Brown:have had a stage one or stage two instead of a stage three and
Howard Brown:then metastatic stage four diagnosis. So screening saves
Howard Brown:lives. It's affect cancer screening saves lives. So I want
Howard Brown:to give a shout out to the partners that make this
Howard Brown:possible. The American Cancer Society, really important
Howard Brown:organisation, great support, great data, great info, please
Howard Brown:check them out. Genentech, pharmaceutical part of the Roche
Howard Brown:family. Thank you for your sponsorship. optimum, optimum
Howard Brown:health, as well. Thank you for your sponsorship is such an
Howard Brown:important message to get out and really important. And lastly,
Howard Brown:Stand Up to Cancer. Really important, great organisation.
Howard Brown:Maybe you've seen the commercials or seen people stand
Howard Brown:up at baseball games and tell them who they're standing up for
Howard Brown:either a cancer caregiver or a cancer patient, or someone that
Howard Brown:has passed away. And very, very important. So on this website,
Howard Brown:you will have guidelines. There's a screening options,
Howard Brown:help you find location from where you live, and lots of
Howard Brown:other additional resources. Now getting into cancer screening,
Howard Brown:I'm going to talk about a couple of the different cancer diseases
Howard Brown:and some of these just astonishing numbers.
Howard Brown:Astonishing. Alright, let's start with breast cancer. So for
Howard Brown:women and men, okay, you can schedule on Mr. graphy test. You
Howard Brown:can certainly go see your doctor and you can actually feel for
Howard Brown:lumps. But just this year 240,000 People were diagnosed
Howard Brown:with breast cancer women 500 Men 42,000 people died from breast
Howard Brown:cancer. So early screening can help save lives. I'm going to
Howard Brown:keep repeating it. Now. Cervical cancer. I don't have those
Howard Brown:numbers with me but going to get a pap smear going to your lady
Howard Brown:doctor women going to get checked. Very important to go
Howard Brown:see your gynaecologist and keep up with that as well. Next lung
Howard Brown:cancer here in the US 238,000 diagnosis this year, and 127,000
Howard Brown:deaths. So obviously, smoking doesn't help that so if you can
Howard Brown:stop smoking might be able to hopefully avoid avoid lung
Howard Brown:cancer, but it's affecting people of all ages as well. And
Howard Brown:then prostate cancer for men. So go see your doctor, get a
Howard Brown:prostate exam 34,000 deaths this year for prostate cancer, one in
Howard Brown:four men will develop prostate cancer over a lifetime. These
Howard Brown:are big numbers. This is a serious issue. Now colorectal
Howard Brown:cancer near and dear to my heart. Okay, these are worldwide
Howard Brown:numbers first 2 million people will be diagnosed this year with
Howard Brown:colorectal cancer 930,000 worldwide deaths in the US
Howard Brown:155,000 People will get diagnosed 52,000 deaths. It's
Howard Brown:just unbelievable. $23 billion dollars will be spent on
Howard Brown:treating colorectal cancer patients. That's a last year's
Howard Brown:number $23 billion. So I will tell you that young onset
Howard Brown:colorectal cancer meaning under the age of 50 is on the rise. So
Howard Brown:getting screened is really important as a couple of ways
Howard Brown:for that as well. There's something called a faecal immune
Howard Brown:test, which is pooping in a cup. You might have seen the
Howard Brown:cologuard commercials from exact Science, and that's another poop
Howard Brown:in a cup and sent to a lab. And upon a positive screening of
Howard Brown:those, they'll refer you to the gold standard a colonoscopy.
Howard Brown:Now, a colonoscopy can save your life, it can clip a polyp, and
Howard Brown:then come back in five years, or it can determine earlier stage
Howard Brown:colorectal cancer, which is potentially more treatable and
Howard Brown:can save your lives. These numbers are absolutely
Howard Brown:astonishing. So the mission of colo of cancer screen week,
Howard Brown:okay, is always the first week of December every year. And it's
Howard Brown:the goal to have people be aware and go schedule that appointment
Howard Brown:to go get screened. During the pandemic, people did not go get
Howard Brown:screened, or they put it off or they forgot about it. They
Howard Brown:delayed it. Because access to hospitals and doctors offices
Howard Brown:were much more limited. Well, that's not the case. So cancer
Howard Brown:screenings, particularly in underserved populations,
Howard Brown:disparities, okay, African American population in colon
Howard Brown:cancer are the least diagnosed because they are the least
Howard Brown:screened. So really important that underserved populations,
Howard Brown:build more trust with the healthcare system. And people in
Howard Brown:remote locations, or have financial difficulty are
Howard Brown:supported to go get screened. Really, really, really
Howard Brown:important. So going back to my story. So these last seven
Howard Brown:years, I went in for my 50 year old colonoscopy in June of 2016.
Howard Brown:And 50 was the screening age. Now it's 45. Unless you have
Howard Brown:family history, or you have symptoms, so for colon cancer,
Howard Brown:that's a big tell his blood in the stool, but it could be
Howard Brown:bloating, could be irritable bowel syndrome, it could be
Howard Brown:cramping, it could be sore back. It's actually misdiagnosed more
Howard Brown:than you think. So I went in for my colonoscopy, and I'm in
Howard Brown:pretty good shape. And I wake up and I asked the doctor,
Howard Brown:everything's good, right doc, and it wasn't. I had an eight
Howard Brown:and a half centimetre tumour in my cecum which is the connection
Howard Brown:to my large and small intestine. And that led set me on a course
Howard Brown:of getting hemicolectomy which is called a colon resection 13.1
Howard Brown:inches of my colon were removed 10 days later, they aren't
Howard Brown:messing around and then taking out margin and live lymph nodes,
Howard Brown:one of those lymph nodes was positive. And for protective
Howard Brown:measures, you start chemotherapy. I don't want
Howard Brown:anyone to have to go through surgeries and chemotherapy. I
Howard Brown:know I can't stop it. But it's a horrible existence. So you get
Howard Brown:that cancer diagnosis that and I got it now for a second time
Howard Brown:lightning struck twice with me as I was diagnosed with stage
Howard Brown:four T cell non Hodgkins lymphoma. And miracle number one
Howard Brown:a bone marrow transplant saved my life in 1989 for my twin
Howard Brown:sister, shout out to you CJ, thank you. Thank you I got my
Howard Brown:life back. But at age 50 I was back in therapies and surgeries
Howard Brown:and clinical trials. And unfortunately, I failed all
Howard Brown:those options. cancer spread to my liver to my stomach lining.
Howard Brown:It's called the omentum and the peritoneum and my bowel. And I
Howard Brown:found help through online resources. Colon town for my
Howard Brown:wife as a caregiver and me as a patient helped me get the
Howard Brown:information and the support and walk alongside of me during my
Howard Brown:time of need. And I qualified for a surgery called
Howard Brown:cytoreduction hyper intrapreneurial chemotherapy.
Howard Brown:They basically cut me from chest to pelvic bone and my surgical
Howard Brown:oncologist removed all the dead and live cancer cells that they
Howard Brown:could see in my abdomen and pelvis. including removing my
Howard Brown:peritoneum and my omentum which are the stomach linings,
Howard Brown:including shaving my liver, including removing my
Howard Brown:gallbladder and including actually doing lots of surgery
Howard Brown:on my on my bowel 13 and a half hour surgery I woke up in the
Howard Brown:ICU and press the morphine drip button.
Howard Brown:And then with all that scar tissue, I did not get a clear
Howard Brown:scan until about a year and a half later, where I was actually
Howard Brown:told I was no evidence of disease on September. 20th of 19
Howard Brown:of 2019. So I had to wait a while. And I'm proud to say now
Howard Brown:that I am four years, no evidence of disease on my way to
Howard Brown:five years of remission. But there are still so many people
Howard Brown:that are going to get diagnosed. And there are so many people
Howard Brown:that are going through treatment. And there are people
Howard Brown:are going to die. Because their cancer burden became too great,
Howard Brown:and they got called to heaven, and you don't know your number.
Howard Brown:So I look in the mirror every single day and say, I am
Howard Brown:blessed. I am grateful. And I am damn lucky to be alive. And how
Howard Brown:can I help people every single day. And I give a speech that
Howard Brown:says getting up again. We all get knocked down in life, and in
Howard Brown:business and in family and in me and others with health. But we
Howard Brown:must get back up again. And again. We must learn and not
Howard Brown:walk in that darkness for too long. If you don't know where to
Howard Brown:turn, call me. I'll help you get help. I'll get you resources.
Howard Brown:Get you a nurse navigator or a social worker or a buddy a
Howard Brown:mentor match. It's really important that we support each
Howard Brown:other. So answer screen week.org It's an awareness. It's a
Howard Brown:resource that I am shouting out at the top of my lungs and
Howard Brown:sharing all over social media the first week of December. Go
Howard Brown:get screened. Make that appointment today. It's so
Howard Brown:important and if you need help reach out so cancer screen week
Howard Brown:again our partners in American Cancer Society, Genentech
Howard Brown:optumhealth and Stand Up to Cancer. Please, I beg you go
Howard Brown:make that appointment, go get screened. I don't want you to
Howard Brown:have to go through what I and others go through when we get
Howard Brown:told that we have cancer. So breast cancer, cervical cancer,
Howard Brown:lung cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, go get your
Howard Brown:heart checked, go to the damn dentist. This is serious
Howard Brown:business. If you're not your optimal health, you cannot lift
Howard Brown:yourself up you cannot lift up others so this is a short show
Howard Brown:direct and to the point and you've been listening in or
Howard Brown:watching shining brightly. And if we choose to shine brightly,
Howard Brown:just a little bit each day for ourselves, for others in our
Howard Brown:neighbourhoods in our communities in the world. It
Howard Brown:will be a better place for all so I will put on my shining
Howard Brown:brightly sunglasses. And I'm now shining for you. Go get
Howard Brown:screened, cancer screened weak.org