CANCER ALL AROUND

Disengagement with the health system may hinder cancer detection.

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MYRA BARBER (NGĀTI Rakaipaaka, Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahungunu) was 47 when she noticed blood in the toilet.

Her father had had three noncancerous polyps removed during a colonoscopy at age 85, so she didn't worry too much because she was so much younger. But his father had died of bowel cancer in 1994, "although they never used the word cancer and I only found that out later," she says.