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A Student Health Center workshop called “College Students and Cancer” was held to educate the university’s students on the facts of cancer.
More than 20 students attended the workshop that described the statistics of different types of cancers and encouraged students to ask questions Monday.
Christy Hamilton, coordinator of sexual health, relationship violence and sexual assault programs, said the theme of the workshop was not to get students worried about cancer.
“This is about everything as a whole,” Hamilton said. “This is about how you should think about it now and educate yourself.”
Hamilton focused on speaking about the top five cancers that affect college students: cervical, testicular, skin, lung and breast cancer.
Testicular cancer is not talked about as much as the other four, she said, especially the value of testicular self-exams.
“It’s very important to know that it can be deadly,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton also stressed the importance of skin cancer awareness and how it is the most common of all the cancers.
“It’s very up-and-coming,” she said. “We have been a society that is very much enthralled in having a tan.”
Chery Hysjulien, clinical psychologist at the Student Health Center, said she likes to describe this phenomenon as “tanorexia.”
“We have become obsessed with not only tanning, but with sunscreen,” said Hysjulien, who worked with cancer patients before coming to SIUC. “The lack of exposure to the sun decreases vitamin D, and then that increases the risk for cancer.”
A balance between obsessing about cancer and using common sense to combat it needs to be met, she said, with the exception of controllable factors like smoking.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of death in women and men, Hysjulien said. However, she said she has not seen a young lung cancer patient — which is not a good thing.
“That makes me worried because that reinforces that sense of invincibility,” Hysjulien said.
Leyla Abukar, a junior from Plano, Texas studying accounting, said she doesn’t have that sense of invincibility Hysjulien talked about.
Abukar said her grandmother died of ovarian cancer in 2004, leaving her to consider her own genetic predisposition of getting cancer.
“We knew she was sick for a while, and it just happened,” Abukar said. “It was really nice to learn about it (tonight).”
Hysjulien and Hamilton encouraged Abukar to get genetic testing to pinpoint certain genes that have been linked to cancer. This way, Abukar can discover if she may carry a gene that increases her risk, Hysjulien said.
She said that was the most important thing she learned at the workshop.
“I didn’t even know they could do that,” Abukar said.
For the students that did not come to the workshop, Hamilton said it is never too late for them to start educating themselves about cancer and taking steps to control the factors that are known to help in its prevention.
“Be mindful and aware of the health practices you do today,” she said. “They can have a lasting impact on your life.”
Erin Holcomb can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 255.
