The iconic American model Pat Cleveland, a trailblazer in the worlds of beauty and fashion, received a shocking diagnosis of colon cancer in March, shortly after she arrived in the City of Lights for Paris Fashion Week. The 68-year-old model was rushed to a Paris hospital shortly after walking in Tommy Hilfiger’s show.
Cleveland’s husband, Paul Van Ravenstein, set up a GoFundMe to assist with her medical expenses, explaining to Page Six that his wife does not have any private health insurance coverage, and the fact that Cleveland was diagnosed outside of the U.S. has become a financial burden on the family. “Pat has no health insurance, she only has Medicare, which won’t cover anything outside of the country. We didn’t even think about it because Pat has been so healthy.”
Read More“This is coming out of left field,” Van Ravenstein said, according to reports from WWD. “She’s healthy, she’s vegan. She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke. I thought we had her checked four or five years ago, but I went to the hospital here near our house — and it seems the last time she was checked was in 2007. That’s too long.”
Van Ravenstein is right about that. Current recommendations call for average-risk people to begin screening for colon cancer with a colonoscopy every 10 years beginning at age 45. How often a person needs to screen really depends on their personal risk, but the 10-year rule is the standard for those with average risk — it gives doctors a chance to catch the cancer early because colon cancer tends to be very slow-growing. If you have a close relative who had colon cancer, a rule of thumb is to get screened 10 years prior to their age of diagnosis. If several family members had colon cancer and were diagnosed at young ages (less than 50), genetic screening may be required. And if you have a colonoscopy and polyps — or precancerous growths inside the colon — are picked up, you may need to get screened every 3 to 5 years.
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