Saturday I participated in an American Cancer Society “Relay for Life” in American Canyon California. In case you’ve never heard of Relay for Life, it’s a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society’s on going cancer research programs. How it works is teams were formed by local companies, schools, churches, clubs, or as in my case, just a group of friends. Each team is then required collect donations and/or sponsors prior to the event. During the event each team is required to have at least 1 person walking on around the track for 24 hours.

As the day progressed more and more people put out luminaries, either in memory of a loved one who died from cancer or in honor of someone who survived. My wife and I put out 4 luminaries for those in our family (3 survivors, and 1 who passed away). By 10 PM that night there were over 400 luminaries and still more coming. As they were being lit, there was a man on stage talking about surviving colon cancer and that’s when it really hit me.

In December 2005 I had a colonoscopy, and they found 2 2mm polyps that were later confirmed pre-cancerous. When I spoke to my doctor, he said that they grow around 1mm per year and don’t become actual cancer until around 10mm. That meant if I hadn’t had that colonoscopy I would have turned up with cancer when I turned 40! That is, assuming they would have found it that soon. Without having that colonoscopy done, I could have been dead before I was 50.

At the time I had them removed, I didn’t think a whole lot about it. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal, but after spending the day at the Relay for Life I now can truly appreciate just how lucky I was.