This story is important to young adults. In the last 20 years, colon cancer has risen 15 percent in people 18 to 50 years old, but only 3 percent in people 45 to 55 years old. So, why might the numbers be rising? Years ago, Samantha Wolak saw how her Nana handled breast cancer with determination, staying active, and never letting it define her. Then, more than a decade after she lost her grandmother, she took that same approach when, at only 39, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. “This is just another little bump in the road, and I'm going to move forward, and I'm not going to let it define who I am,” Samantha Wolak, 40, of Norco remembers thinking. Her main concern was telling her family. “Because with my mom having both of her parents, both of my grandparents, pass away from cancer, here I am having to tell her your daughter has cancer,” said Wolak. At only 36, a routine checkup revealed she had low blood iron. She needed infusions, but last year, another diagnosis. “I kept having a stomach ache, and it almost felt like a very intense cramp, and I just summed it up, it's crawfish season. I was eating crawfish. It was spicy,” she thought. Her husband thought differently. “‘No you, are in so much pain, like you can't even stand. You can't walk. I think it's time to go to the emergency room,’” Wolak remembers him telling her. Surgery removed the tumor, and part of her colon. Twelve rounds of chemotherapy followed. Her wall of wigs was adorned with positive messages, and hope. It's estimated that this year in Louisiana, there'll be 2,500 new cases of colon cancer in all ages, but there is a noticeable increase in young adults.