After completing a demanding 24-mile hike into the Grand Canyon, Sara Tighe was feeling strong and healthy. The 50 year old mother of five had felt as energetic as her husband, two sons and daughter-in-law who’d been with her on the trek. Thus, when she decided to try a free in-home test kit for colorectal cancer offered by Medicine Shoppe Pharmacies, she expected to be reassured.

While performing the test at her Tempe, Arizona home, however, she was appalled to see blood in her stool specimen. An alarm went off in her mind and she panicked. Wasn’t blood in the stool a sign of cancer? Finally, she calmed herself enough to follow the instructions and put the kit in the mail. Then, too nervous to wait for the results, she made an appointment with a specialist. When the doctor found a mass in her colon and told her he suspected a malignancy, she could hardly believe it. "I’d never been ill before - I don’t even catch colds," she says.

After getting a second opinion, Sara had immediate surgery. The tumor was removed and the pathology report indicated that it had been malignant - but thanks to early detection, the cancer had not spread. A letter which soon followed from the AMC Cancer Research Center confirmed that the screening test Sara had mailed in was positive.

Today, three years after the test that saved her life, Sara is not only healthy, she’s thriving. "My life is opening up," she says, "I’m more active than I ever was. Once you’ve faced death, you ask yourself, ‘What difference does it make if I don’t succeed?’ The sad thing is not to try things. I value life a lot. I’m grateful." Sara’s story is just one of many similar reports from over 330,000 participants in Medicine Shoppe’s free annual screenings over the last three years.