Young Man Bares All (Colostomy Bag Included) for Colon Cancer Awareness

[Bonobo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-lanier/young-man-bares-all-colos_b_6988740.html

"You have colon cancer."

It was Friday the 13th of June 2014 when these words left my doctor's lips. At 28, this isn't something that I was prepared to hear. At 28, I thought I was immune to these things. As a fitness professional, I never imagined I'd be susceptible to colon cancer. At 28, I never thought that I'd become the face of a cancer awareness campaign -- posing with my colostomy bag no less.

What followed over the course of the next several, post-diagnosis months, was an interesting turn of events. As a self-certified nerd, I researched the oh-so-many intricacies of the disease -- its symptoms, its various stages, its survivors and those not so lucky.

To give some perspective, researchers recently analyzed U.S. National Cancer Institute data from 1975 to 2010 and realized that the overall colon cancer rate for Americans 20 to 34 rose by 2 percent each year. The study predicts that by 2020 and 2030, colon cancer rates are expected to jump by 38 percent and 90 percent, respectively, among people aged 20 to 34.