DENVER — I got a text from David Levine, our 9NEWS Creative Director, the night of the regional Emmy Awards last year here in Denver. He’d just won an Emmy, but I had to go to the stage to accept it on his behalf. His text explained to me his sudden, unexpected absence.
It was simple, to-the-point, and a brutal punch to the gut. “I had a routine colonoscopy on Monday and they found cancer,” he wrote. “Surgery Monday to remove it and 6 week recovery,” he added.
Credit: 9NEWS When he did, eventually, return to work, I – ever the reporter – had a bunch of questions for him. His message was simple. The cancer was bad.
Stage 3b. It had gone into his lymph nodes. Had he waited any longer to get his colonoscopy, something he did as soon as he turned 45, the cancer in his body might have become largely untreatable.
“The colonoscopy likely saved my life,” he said. Little did I know that about six months later, that conversation might have very well saved my life as well. Here’s the part where I get to tell you something that I’m not exactly proud of.
Last year, I turned 50. Yeah. 50.
I keep thinking of my preteen self that would have considered that age to be ancient. How did this happen? How did I get to be 50? In many ways, I still feel like the goofball kid who couldn’t catch a fly ball in grade school to save my life. Sorry, tangent.
Credit: 9NEWS Anyway, in May 2021, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommended a lowering of the age to start get.
