Free health awareness and wellness event set for Tuesday at Kroc Center

QUINCY — People interested in taking charge of their health are invited to the Blessing Health and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois’ free colorectal cancer awareness and wellness event in the Meadows Room at Quincy’s Kroc Center from 4 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9.

The Awareness and Wellness Event will feature a short presentation on colon health at 5 p.m., along with a display of a mega inflatable colon to help people better understand how this vital organ works, and take-home colorectal cancer screening kits and other no-cost screenings on-site, including A1C testing to measure blood sugar.

Of the more than 153,000 people who are expected to be diagnosed with colorectal cancer this year, only about 40 percent will be diagnosed in the earliest stage, when the survival rate is 90 percent. That is because there often are no identifiable symptoms of the disease in its early stage. Identifiable symptoms typically appear once colorectal cancer has spread and the survival rate decreases. That fact makes screening a key action in decreasing the risk for colorectal cancer.

For more information about colorectal cancer care, go to https://www.blessinghealth.org/colon.