Teaching kindergarten is exhausting. But when Mariely Del Valle started napping every day after work early last year, she knew something was off. “I would immediately get home at 4:30-ish and take a nap from 5 to 7 p.m., which wasn’t the norm,” Del Valle, 41, told TODAY’s Craig Melvin in a segment aired March 8. In the evenings, when Del Valle would wake up from her nap, all she could manage was a shower before heading to bed again. Still, she never felt rested.
“There is something that’s changed that’s affecting people much younger, and that’s causing them to develop colon cancer much younger than they used to,” she said. Young people are also less likely to seek treatment when they have symptoms of colon cancer, and doctors may be less likely to consider colon cancer as a possible diagnosis in these patients. 'Many young people dismiss their symptoms. They’re busy with their lives put off that doctor’s visit,' Cercek said.