March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month and Youngstown State women's soccer rising senior Mackenzie Simon is to trying to spread the word.
Wanting to shine a light on colorectal cancer and bringing awareness to the forefront has been Simon's goal since losing an aunt and uncle to the disease. Maureen Train and Marty Simon both passed away in their forties.
In October of 2021, Simon and her brothers, Patrick and RJ, partnered with the national non-profit Colorectal Cancer Alliance.
"Colon cancer has taken two of the best people to ever be in our lives," Simon wrote in an Instagram post. "Both our Uncle Marty and Aunt Maureen were inspiring and showed us that no matter what happens we must persevere and continue to show love and compassion to those in our lives."
Simon received promotional materials from the Alliance to promote its cause and raise awareness through a variety of social media channels.
"I've been trying to promote colorectal awareness through social media posts mostly," Simon said. "I also sent out a mass email to Youngstown State students in the college of Health and Human services."
Simon posted in a Facebook forum for her hometown of Olmsted Falls, Ohio, and received positive feedback from cancer survivors.
"One of the big things I did was create a community forum back home on Facebook and there were survivors of colon cancer saying thank you for talking about this or 'this is awesome you're talking about this I didn't even realize I needed to be screened.'"
The Simons have already started getting screened due to their increased familial risk. The rate of young-onset colorectal cancer, which occurs in people under age 50, is rising enough that screening guidelines were recently revised. People at average risk should start getting checked at age 45, according to the United States Preventive Services Task Force's recommendations.
Simon also spoke to her teammates to get them involved with her cause.
"I did something with the team a couple weeks ago, or maybe the end of February, and handed out pamphlets and talked about their risk factors, and they said 'I'm going to tell my parents about this.'"
According to CCAlliance.org, colorectal cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and women combined in the U.S., and the second leading cause of cancer death in men and women combined.
For more information on colorectal cancer awareness, go to CCAlliance.org.
