When Katie Couric lost her husband to colon cancer in 1998 and brought the discussion of colonoscopies into public conversations, the number of people getting the test rose 20 percent.

Some of you likely are wondering if Pat Ingelse had ever had a colonoscopy, before she was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer.

She had not. Her brother and a close friend experienced serious side effects after their procedures, so she canceled the 2012 appointment she had for the test.

In fact, the physician who conducted the procedure just before Pat’s surgery greeted her with, “You broke our date two years ago.”

There’s no way to know whether a colonoscopy would have detected Pat’s cancer in its beginning stages. But in hindsight, does Pat wish she had kept that date?

Yes indeed.

“Do it, regardless of the risks,” she urges. “The problems these two people close to me had truly were anomalies.”

The American Cancer Society recommends that men and women at average risk for developing colon cancer have screenings beginning at age 50. There are tests that find polyps and cancer, and there are tests that mainly find cancer.

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Check out the risk factors for colon cancer cited by Columbia University’s Department of Surgery, as well as five reasons people choose not to get a colonoscopy — and the reality:

http://www.columbiasurgery.net/five-reasons-not-to-get-colonoscopy