Local couple has colon cancer and treatment together

Local couple has colon cancer and treatment together

March 14, 2007

By LORI TUCKER
6 News Anchor/Reporter

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- A Morristown couple recently decided to get colonoscopies within a week of each other. But the test results added to their lives in a way they hadn't hoped for.

Rita and Tommy Musick do nearly everything together. Lately, that includes getting treatment for their colon cancer.

Cancer of the colon is a malignancy in the colon's inner lining. The colon is the part of the large intestine that runs from the cecum to the rectum.

Most of these cancers develop from colonic polyps. Removal of pre-cancerous polyps can prevent colon cancer.

Colon polyps and early colon cancers may cause no symptoms. But full-blown colon cancer can cause a microscopic amount of blood in the stool, rectal bleeding, bowel obstruction and weight loss.

Risk factors for colon cancer include a family history of the cancer, colonic polyps or long standing ulcerative colitis.

One way to reduce the overall risk is by following a diet that's low in fat and high in fiber.

"He told us we both had the same spots," Rita Musick says. "It's in the same spot. Mine was just a little bigger."

"Well, I told some of them they'd probably find something wrong with me, too, after they found something with Rita," Tommy Musick says.

"Why did you think that?" 6 News asks. "I just had a feeling," Tommy says.

Rita and Tommy even had surgery to remove the cancerous polyps on the same day.

"I went into see them for a hospital consult. One was in one room and the other was in the room next door. I knocked on Ms. Musick's door. She wasn't in the room and I go to see him instead and they're both in the room," says Dr. Susan Huntsinger, with UT Medical Center's cancer center.

Rita's cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. She's now getting regular chemotherapy and keeps her fingers crossed that it will work. And she knows her husband is always by her side.

The Musicks discussed getting colonoscopies for several years but they put it off until Rita had some symptoms. Then they took action.      

If you have no family history of colon cancer, like the Musicks, you should get a colonoscopy at age 50.  

If you have a family history, you need the screening when you're 10 years younger than the person or persons in your family who had the disease.  

When it's caught early, colon cancer can be survived.