Generation Y aids its predecessors in fight against cancer

With over a million Americans being diagnosed with cancer each year, according to the American Cancer Society, it is apparent that in some way or another many of us have known of someone who has been diagnosed. As college students, we may be left thinking that there is nothing we can do to prevent casualties caused by the disease, when in reality we have much more power in this situation than we think.

Those of us belonging to generation Y have more information at our fingertips than any other generation before us. With the arrogance we harness about possibly knowing more than earlier generations, there are positive things we can do to help educate these generations specifically in dealing with cancer.

When we were younger and our hormones were running wild, our parents sat us down and gave us the sex talk. This, for most of us, was an awkward situation. It’s time for us to sit down and have a similarly awkward talk with our parents and elders. With our parents being in some of the highest risk groups for cancer, simple screenings and early detection can be of the utmost importance. By having a one-on-one conversation with our parents after gathering all the information we are able to access, it is time we let them know about the seriousness of the issue.

Nonprofit organizations like F*** Cancer have created campaigns that focus on being the educators to the older generation and early detection instead of just putting money toward a cure. Yael Cohen, CEO of F*** Cancer stated, “I’m not a researcher so I couldn’t contribute scientifically and I can’t raise the billions we need to find a cure, but I can teach people how to cure 90% of cancers — find them in stage one. I’m of the generation that is motivated, quizzical and impatient. We crave instant gratification and another 40 years for a cure just doesn’t really get us jazzed.”

Simply getting the older generation to look for cancer rather than find it in later stages can make such a big difference in saving lives. This is something that we should look at as a duty and responsibility to those who have helped raise us.

My passion for this issue comes from something that changed my family’s world at the beginning of the spring semester. When I received the news that my mom had breast cancer, it came out of nowhere. She has always been the health junkie and hypochondriac in our family, so I initially was in disbelief. I immediately thought back to a year ago when my aunt lost her battle with cancer and was terrified to find out that my mom could have a long rough battle ahead of her. When reports came back, we learned that her own initiative to get a screening due to symptoms caught the cancer in stage one. Early detection had saved her life.

We often don’t talk about cancer until it is too late. Instead of being naïve to the facts, we must educate our parents and, most importantly, ourselves. The difference we can make in lessening the numbers of those deceased can be huge. In a war with a disease that might sometimes seem hopeless, we have the opportunity to take the power into our own hands and make a difference.

Categorised in: Opinions

This post was written by critedev