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By PAMELA C. TURFA pamt@leader.net
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 Page: 1D
A doctor warned Tony Biago Sr.: You should undergo a colonoscopy, the
examination that inspects the colon for signs of cancer.
But, the thought of someone inserting an instrument into his bowels
frightened Biago, then in his 50s.
“The colon was kind of a sacred thing,” he remembers feeling.
“Have it your way,” the doctor said. “I’m advising you.”
Three years after colon cancer was diagnosed and undergoing multiple rounds
of chemotherapy and radiation and two colon surgeries, Bingo, now 65, has this
advice for others:
A colonoscopy is nothing compared to colon cancer.
“I would take 1,000 exams compared to what I went through,” he says.
In 2000 – the year after Biago’s cancer was diagnosed – more than 200
Luzerne County residents were told they had a form of colon or rectal cancer,
according to the state Department of Health.
Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in Pennsylvania,
but it is the most preventable and curable if detected and treated early
through screening, according to the American Cancer Society.
Biago’s cancer wasn’t a small growth or in an early stage.
In November 1999, a doctor found a three-centimeter, stage 3 tumor inside
his anal opening.
Biago had scheduled the appointment after bleeding into the toilet. He
believed he had hemorrhoids.
Biago recalls the doctor’s words: “He said: `There’s no hemorrhoids to
speak of. You have something growing inside you.”
“My heart went into my mouth. … I don’t even know how I drove home from
Plains,” says the Mountain Top resident and developer of Summit Meadows
Estate subdivision.
The doctor’s prognosis frightened him. “It’s a tough surgery. You’re going
to need chemotherapy. You’re going to need radiation. More than likely you’re
going to end up with a permanent bag” to collect body wastes, the doctor
said.
People are at higher risk for colon cancer if – like Biago – they are over
the age of 50. They also are at a higher risk if they have a family history of
colon cancer or a personal or family history of colon polyps or have
inflammatory bowel disease.
Internet research and first-hand knowledge lead Biago to Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, a nationally known facility in New York City,
and Dr. Douglas Wong, chief of colorectal surgery.
Wong’s prescription: Two months of radiation combined with three months of
chemotherapy to reduce the size of the tumor. Then surgery to remove the tumor
followed by months of wearing a bag to collect the body wastes and more
chemotherapy and radiation followed by more surgery to reconstruct the anal
opening.
Wong also gave Biago another reason to worry. Early tests indicated the
cancer possibly had spread through the colon wall to the lymph nodes.
During the weeks after the diagnosis, Biago recalls thinking: “I have to
live as long as my mother,” who died at age 91.
“I’m too young to die,” he said.
Eventually, tests showed that the cancer had not spread.
And, the cancer has not returned since Biago’s surgeries in February and
December 2000.
But, for months, he says, he was “living with a death sentence.”
SUBHED
Rigorous treatment
biago, an accountant by profession, keeps a file of medical reports and
photographs of his tumor.
He can meticulously recount the steps in his treatment and the effects of
the treatment on his body.
“From the time I was diagnosed until I got regulated again was 2 1/2
years,” he says, recalling the mouth sores, pain in his hands and feet, lower
body pain, loss of hair and loss of appetite caused by the cancer treatments.
“At times (it) felt like my skin was coming off my body,” he recounts in
a written summary of his experience with colorectal cancer.
At one point, he remembers telling his oncologist he could not stand any
more chemotherapy. The doctor gave him a few weeks off.
He also remembers the support of friends and family.
“We kept a positive outlook,” he says, crediting his wife Barbara for
helping him cope. “I kept a positive outlook even when they told me it was
50-50.
“It was traumatic for the entire family. It’s traumatic for everyone
around you.”
Now, Biago urges anyone over 50 years of age: “See your physician. Do what
he tells you.”
State legislation reintroduced this year would require all private health
insurance plans to cover colon cancer screening for people at risk for the
disease.
“The worst part about it is you don’t know you have it. You’re walking
around with it and you feel really normal,” Biago says.
“By the time you get symptoms, it’s too late.”
Every six months, he returns to Wong’s office for a checkup.
“And, now I get a sigmoidoscopy whether I like it or not.”
Pamela C. Turfa, a staff writer, may be reached at 829-7177.