On Healthy Living is it mandatory for me, due to family history?

June 14th of year 2012 marks the 2nd year anniversary of my Mother's death. She died with ovarian cancer. Hence, I could not disregard the fact that our bloodline has cancer. This was already proven when my Uncle, younger brother of my Mom also died with colon cancer. Among the twelve siblings, including my mother, only three of them remained, some of them passed away at young age of "I don't even know the reason how they died". I am not against my family but they have this mindset of not approaching any health expert for health check up because they believed they might be deceived and may pay high amount of money if found sick. When I tried to argue with my mother when she was still alive yet sick, she only had this one reason of not going to hospital, she always said, "If I go, I will die there because the doctor won't let me get out. And we all pay these big amount of money. That's how my father died before.", the same reason I always got from my late grandmother, my mother's mother who just died last November 2011. That really made me feel sad until now, yet all I can do is to accept everything that had happened.