The annual Jean-Pagé Procure Walk of Courage will take place on Sunday in Montreal, Father’s Day, with the aim of raising awareness and raising funds for prostate cancer research.
CF Montreal players will join the participants at 10 a.m. on Mount Royal, where there will also be entertainment, music, beer and hot dogs.
It’s a very small walk, it’s symbolic, but it’s very family-friendly, it’s festive, it’s unifying, and it will do us good to see each other, to cuddle, to say to each other that we are here and that we support each otherdeclared the honorary president of the march, Isabelle Pagé, in a telephone interview.
It was his father, himself suffering from the disease, who had created the event. After his death in 2019, I decided to continue what my father started, because I have two boys, and my family has prostate cancer.explained Ms. Pagé.
The march will take place in people for the first time in two years, due to the pandemic. But this year, the event will also take place remotely, while participants from all over Quebec will be asked to connect via Zoom. The objective is to join people from all over the region who will tell us who they are marching for and why, what connects them to the causesaid Ms. Pagé.
Support patients
The good news is that when found early, prostate cancer can, in 2022, it’s really great that we can say that, can be kept under control, she said. There are many men who live in remission from prostate cancer and will not die from it..
However, it is a cancer which is very sneaky, which has no or very very few symptoms at the beginning and which quietly makes its merry way inside and when it is caught too late may already have created other problems.
This is why Ms. Paré also wants the walk to help raise public awareness of the importance of screening.
In addition, she recalled that the taboos surrounding the disease and its symptoms can isolate men who have it. Men have their own way of experiencing the disease, it’s in our genes, it’s in our culture, that men must be strong and not show their vulnerability too much.she explained.
The march is thus an opportunity so that men leave their homes, can have a place, a place, to exchange, to discuss, to talk […]realize that they are not alone.
She recalled that the organization Procure has a telephone line available seven days a week, where health professionals can answer questions from the population and offer support.
Procure also participates in research, in particular with a biobank collecting the genetic data of 2,000 patients, to try to get statistics, to get a little more data about who is likely to get prostate cancerexplained Ms. Paré.
According to the latest figures from the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec, prostate cancer is the most often diagnosed in men. In 2019, it accounted for 18% of diagnoses, while 5,283 patients had contracted it.
The Canadian Press
Source: Radio-Canada
