Hereditary Colon Cancer Takes Guts

Mom says she saw blood in my diapers as a baby. My father had just had his colectomy eight months before I was born; my grandfather, the de novo FAP carrier in our family, died six years prior. Mom, who only found out about FAP in my dad’s family after I was conceived, was fiercely on the lookout for any signs that I, too, might have FAP. Fifteen years later, I became a third generation previvor.

In my family, whining got you nowhere. “You don’t get a choice. You might as well suck it up...

Growing up with Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, for me, meant growing up with an intimate knowledge of my own mortality. I never met my paternal grandfather who died at the age of 36, but the legacy of his death was significant. My father grew up thinking he, too, wouldn’t make it past 36 and lived his life accordingly. As such, he, perhaps unwittingly, passed this notion on to me. At 37, I’m living in ‘extra innings.’ To quote Skip Carey, beloved Atlanta Braves announcer, "it’s free basebal...

Since the inception of the Hereditary Colon Cancer Foundation, I frequently find myself having to describe Familial Adenomatous Polyposis. It has, on more than one occasion, given me pause to ask how I define FAP. It's actually a quite interesting thought. 

If you do a search online for any of the hereditary colon cancer diseases, including FAP, you are met with cold, clinical information. You'll read about the list of named syndromes - Gardner, Lynch, Turcot, Cowden...

"Whenever you grow up in a family of people who think they’re going to die young, childhood ends pretty early. When I was a kid, they would do colonoscopies and not give you anything to put you to sleep like they do today. You were stone cold sober. One time when I was around 13 years old, I was undergoing a colonoscopy and told the doctor to give me the camera. “Dude, if you can see, I want to see.” So there I was…looking in my own camera. That was the stuff I was doing when I was 13 years...