Barbara Graham Palmore has become a reluctant advocate for the cure and treatment of colorectal cancer.

On August 21, 2002, 35-year-old Roy “Rock” Palmore Jr. died instantly when he lost control of his motorcycle and crashed into a tree on Derwent Road. At the time, Roy Palmore was deep into a battery of chemotherapy and radiation treatments aimed at eradicating the colorectal cancer with which he had been diagnosed two days before Christmas in 2001.

Mr. Palmore was an experienced and careful rider which convinced Mrs. Palmore that the fatal accident was caused by the side effects of the cancer treatment. “I think he lost muscle control which caused him to lose control of the bike,” she said.

With no apparent family history, Roy Palmore’s cancer escaped early detection because he ignored some early warning signs of the disease, according to Mrs. Palmore.

As an employee of Virginia Power he traveled to New Orleans with emergency crews in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It was during that trip that he first admitted to a problem. “He called home and said that his condition was getting worse,” Palmore recalled. The late December visit to the doctor and a colonoscopy led directly to surgery in January. Ten inches of his colon were removed and chemotherapy was begun in February. In May a port was installed in his chest to facilitate simultaneous chemo and radiation treatments.

Roy died on a Thursday. He was to have had his last cycle of treatment the following day.

Barbara Palmore turned pro-active in 2005. She created a line of T-shirts with pictures of Roy doing his favorite activities and created flyers with information on colorectal cancer which she distributes to churches and community organizations.

Proceeds from these activities go to the National Foundation for Cancer Research and into a Rose Foundation account set up in Roy Palmore’s memory. The flyers contain information about the warning signs and the prevention of cancer. “Had I had this information when Roy first got sick, I would have made him go to the doctor,” Barbara Palmore said. “He was such an outgoing person. He never smoked or drank or abused his body in any way so it was easy for him to ignore the early signs.”

Barbara Palmore’s research has also unearthed a link which neither she nor her husband suspected. There is a family history of Crohn’s disease which is a marker for colorectal cancer. “We just never connected the dots, because we didn’t have the information. Now it is my mission to get this information out there and to do what ever I can to help find a cure.”