Colon cancer survivor seeks to raise awareness

After missing two years of his awareness campaign due to the COVID-19 pandemic, colon cancer survivor Graham Bannister is promising to up the ante this year as he seeks to promote early screening and a more active lifestyle among residents.

Insisting that raising awareness about colon cancer was one way of helping residents to beat the disease, Bannister told Barbados TODAY it was his intention to go into secondary schools, businesses and religious organisations and share his story and talk about the importance of early testing.

The month of March is recognised as colorectal cancer awareness month.

“I want us to work together as businesses and with the Government to find ways to encourage more people to get on board with the early screening and get rid of the myths associated with it and make sure everybody looks after themselves and do the right thing,” said Bannister.

Close to two years after his surgery and recovery, Bannister, who was diagnosed with stage 1 colon cancer in February 2018, created the Facebook page Beating Colon Cancer, in order to spread awareness.

However, he told Barbados TODAY he believed it was necessary for him to now take the message directly to people. It is for that reason that Bannister said he was trying to forge a partnership with the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Ministry of Education.

He said he was also in the process of reaching out to various organisations in an effort to “talk with their staff just to give them what my story is and what my journey was about, which shows the importance of early detection and early screening”.

He said it was also important to get the message across to more young people since colon cancer was considered the third most common type of cancer in Barbados and it was affecting younger people.

“It was my daughter and my son who in 2018 who were 17 and 13, who actually forced me go to the doctor when they heard I had a pain in side. So it is good to speak to the children so they can understand that when you see mommy and daddy have a little pain here encourage them to go and get it checked to make sure everything is okay,” said Bannister.

A part of the awareness this month is the “wear blue day”, which will take place on Friday, March 4. Bannister said he was encouraging individuals and businesses to show their support for the cause today.

“We use that day to encourage everyone to wear blue to show their support to those who have died or those who have battled or are battling the colon cancer. It is to also show support to their families and caregivers. So what I am asking is for Barbados to step up and this year everybody wears blue to show their support for colon cancer awareness,” said Bannister.

He said he was encouraging people to send a picture to him of them in their blue outfit so he could post it on his ‘Beating Colon Cancer’ Facebook page’.