Roy Davis participated in a clinical trial to treat his rectal cancer. He has been in remission since October 2005.

Very few people want to talk about colorectal cancer.

Fortunately, Roy Davis is one of them.

Now retired, he splits time between his home in Roxbury and Fort Myers, Fla., and is an active participant in cancer support groups at Boston Medical Center. Most recently, he was guest speaker at BMC’s Annual Survivor’s Luncheon.

Yes, Davis is a survivor.

“I consider myself very lucky,” he said. “The cancer was caught in time.”

Cancer of the colon and rectum, collectively termed colorectal cancer, is the third most common cancer in this country in both men and women.

According to the American Cancer Society, almost 149,000 estimated new cases will be diagnosed in 2008. It is also the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths, trailing only lung cancer. Almost 50,000 people are expected to die of colorectal cancer this year.
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Two survivors share their stories

Martha Alston is a modern day medical miracle.

She is 90 years old now, and would rather talk about her homemade apple pie than her bouts with cancer.

But bouts she has had.

She was 63 years old when she first started feeling pain in her stomach as well as constipation. “I didn’t pay much attention to it,” she said.

Her doctors did. They discovered that she had colon cancer.

Surgery took care of the problem, but in some cases, the cancer can reappear. For 21 years, Alston was cancer-free until she experienced the same pain in her stomach.
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