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I am so glad that Dr. Williams talked me into
sending that little sample in.
My name is Al Prado and I've been a Kaiser Permanente
member for 15 years.
I just went in for my normal physical and went through my
physical and everything and then Dr. Williams
told me to send in my little sample.
We know that colon cancer screening saves lives
and this test is an easy way to get screened.
I just brushed that aside, I wouldn't send it in.
You know just because I was stubborn I guess.
I just said you know, Mr. Prado, I think it's time
that we got this taken care of.
She says, so promise me that you'll send it in this time and
I said, I promise.
The FIT test is a test that looks for just a very small
amount of blood that might be in your stool.
After I got home I said, Well what's the big deal
you know, just go to the bathroom
and take my sample and send it in.
It might be some blood that you can't see with your naked eye
but it picks that up so that we can know that there might be
another problem we need to look at further.
Doesn't hurt and it just takes maybe two seconds.
It cost me nada.
Many times folks don't have any symptoms when they have early
colon cancer and that's why screening is so important.
When I put my sample in there and I put it in that
little tube, I said that was the simplest thing I've ever done.
I called him once I got the result
that his stool test was positive and said,
you know, these often come back positive and it's
no cause for concern, but we want to do a colonoscopy next.
And that's where they found it at the upper end of my colon.
A lot of times we find cancers before they spread and that's
the important thing, we get them when they're easy to treat.
I was really lucky in that form
that they did find it when they found it.
And there was only a stage one.
Stage one cancer means that we caught it at a really early time
before it's really progressed, before it spread throughout the
body and so it's a time where if we just remove the cancer often
that's all that you need to do and then we just follow him up
to make sure that he stays cancer free.
And I'm still thankful Kaiser Permanente found
that cancer in me and took care of it all.
That's how I feel about them.