“Is It Because I’m Black?” “Unnh……Yes … and No.”

All too often I read headlines like, “African-American men are more likely to get prostate cancer.” And it is usually followed by something like, “They are also more likely to die from the disease due to lack of proper screening.”

So there we have it. Problem, or rather Challenge, and Solution.

I heard it on the news again this morning as I was mulling over what to write about. Just a blurb, two seconds, but it stuck in my mind this time.

Lately mental images and thoughts keep returning to this, or a variation: ‘CK, You need to be writing about health issues specific to our community.’

My mental argument has been, ‘but it’s very uncomfortable for me to write about it, and besides my brothers and sisters don’t want to hear this, so they won’t bother to read my articles’, etc. Just excuses. Any excuse to not follow my first mind.

Grandma always demanded I follow my first mind, so here goes. In her honor, I’m giving it a shot, beginning with this article which hits close to home.

My Brothers, We Need To Be Screened

Even though we are the most at-risk demographic, we black men are significantly less likely to undergo prostate cancer screening until it’s too late.  Too late to spare us the pain and suffering of advanced prostate cancer.

Most likely someone close to us, a spouse, or loved one, will mention that we need to be tested for some uncomfortable probability; it doesn’t even have to be as serious as cancer and we immediately say something like, “I’m ok. There’s nothing wrong. I know how I feel. If something was wrong I’d know it.”

Unless they are persistent the moment will pass and we’ll get on with our life. We know we should get tested, we think about it briefly, put it on the back-burner and move on, content with the knowledge that we will ‘get around to it.’

While writing this article, just now, I bounced it off my wife and she immediately leaped on the opportunity. “Yeah, YOU need to go get tested. You need to do it annually. That’s why they have testing honey. So when are you going to set the appointment?”

I kid you not. That’s the conversation that just went down. Whoa! That was a ‘can of worms’ best left unopened. I just got ‘test jacked’, followed up with ‘honey.’ Now I have to get tested, live the life I write.

I’ve lost friends and relatives to cancer and a few specifically to prostate cancer. In every case they were not diagnosed until the cancer had advanced.

Yet Another Study 

September 27, 2004 — Although black men in the United States are more likely than white men to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and have a two-fold greater risk of dying from it, they are significantly less likely to be screened for prostate cancer, according to a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital study.

Again Early Screening is the key

Success Is A LifeStyle, Live Well

CK Dillon

http://LiquidVitaminsOnline.Net

Support@CreateVitality.Com

See Part 2: Screening is The Key…

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