A new year means a new calendar, and to get into this one, you must show your scar. Cancer survivor Michelle Cervone said, "They tried to do something that represented your life and Kenny and I had a boat."

Cervone is June in the 2006 ’colondar.’ She was 26-years-old when she was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.

Cervone said, "When I was diagnosed I did what they told you not to do and went and searched on the Internet."

That’s where Michelle found the National Colon Club and the creator of the ‘colondar.’ One in nine cases of colorectal cancer is found in people under age 50.

Cervone said, "I was so excited to see it and having a scar at 26-years-old that big, it was kind of hard to deal with. So it was nice to know people were still active and willing to wear bikini’s and show their stomachs."

Because she was so young, doctors thought Michelle’s pain was anything but cancer. An emergency room CAT scan found a mass the size of a baseball that may have been growing for more than ten years.

Colon cancer is known as an older person’s disease, but there is a hereditary factor with this and uterine cancer. The message is, know your family history"

Dr. Alok Khorana is Michelle’s doctor at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Dr. Khorana said, "Anybody in the family who is a first degree relative, so they are related by blood either of the same generation or one generation apart and was diagnosed with colon cancer age less than 50, should have screening and genetic testing done."

The colonoscopies should start 10 to 15 years before the youngest person in the family was diagnosed.

Michelle’s grandfather had colon cancer when he was older. She does plan to get genetic testing.

She said, "Every time I get frustrated about something I’m like okay, let’s slow down and take a step back and think about what is truly important in life. And that’s good because some people go through life and never see that."