Hispanic Men: Here’s to Your Health
Edward Barrios Acevedo     [Photo]

This November will mark the third anniversary of my father’s passing. And though he would have turned 69 years old this year, he died too soon.

No matter how old they are, it seems, they always do.

His death may have been preventable. For too long, my father ignored the signs, dismissed the symptoms, the bleeding, the discomfort, while every day the cancer that began deep in his colon slowly consumed more of his body.

“I can’t have cancer, I feel good and I feel strong,” my father would tell me when he was first diagnosed. Eventually though, the effects of chemotherapy and surgery took hold and made the bravest of men quietly succumb.

Strong as he was, my father wasn’t smart about his health. Sure, he ate well, led an active lifestyle, didn’t smoke or drink. Yet despite having good health insurance, he rarely, if ever, paid a visit to his doctor.

In my experience I’ve seen that my father isn’t the exception in the Hispanic population.

Many Hispanic men – for reasons ranging from lack of insurance to sheer stubbornness – do not visit a doctor for their annual check-ups or various periodic screenings.

Hispanic men are not the exception. Most men don’t even feel they need health insurance, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Of course, with Hispanics being a third less likely to be medically insured, according to the U.S. Census, the relationship between poverty and maintaining good health is paramount.

Today, it’s easy to speculate that a simple exam would have saved my father’s life. Maybe not, but I believe that if he had visited the doctor sooner, if he had put his stubbornness aside, he may have had a better chance.

The tragedy for me is that I will never know.

Several months ago, when I began to have small amounts of rectal bleeding, I had made an appointment to see my doctor right away. With my father’s recent death, I couldn’t ignore it.

I visited my primary care doctor and discussed what was happening with my body. We discussed my current health, diet, lifestyle and medical history.

He listened to my heart, lungs, and took a look in my ears. He checked for hernias and testicular cancer – all normal things in a general physical for men. Finally, he examined my rectum. I must admit the exam was rather embarrassing. At 32 years old, I had never had such an exam.

The doctor was unsure what was the cause, so he referred me to a specialist.

Several weeks later, an exam by a colorectal surgeon determined that an anal fissure was the cause. With a change in diet and taking baths, fissures – small tears in the anus caused by diarrhea or constipation - usually heal on their own.

But the doctor also noticed that there were several masses, she called “hypertrophic papillae” in my colon. She stated that if we choose surgery to address the fissure she would remove them in their entirety and send them off to a lab to ensure they were not cancerous.

According to the Journal of American Medical Association, approximately 56,000 people will die of colon cancer this year. A significant number of those deaths are preventable.

After some thought, I opted for surgery. Fortunately, the growths turned out to be benign.

Today, I am still healing but look forward to continuing leading an active lifestyle while receiving regular checkups. For me, it’s just one way to honor my father.

(Edward Barrios Acevedo is a counselor, teacher and freelance columnist. E-mail him at Edwardfactor@yahoo.com)

© 2005, Hispanic Link News Service
09/25/05
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