By Kat Carney
CNN Headline News
Host Bob Barker and announcer Rod Roddy on the set of "The Price Is Right." Story Tools |
(CNN) -- For nearly 17 years, Rod Roddy has been the familiar voice of the hit television show "The Price is Right," beckoning contestants to "Come on down!" Recently, however, his voice was nearly silenced.
Rod Roddy keeps a rigorous schedule, traveling frequently to Asia. He began to experience fatigue last year and chalked it up to extensive travel and overwork.
"I figured, 'Gee, I'm just tired,' and I'm working a lot, and I'm not eating right, you know. I'm just tired. I was bleeding inside and didn't know it," Roddy said.
He was working on a project in April 2001 when he entered a wrong door and fell into a dark storeroom, injuring his knee. To deal with his pain, Roddy started taking ibuprofen. In retrospect, Roddy says that too much ibuprofen may have caused his internal bleeding, which brought him to a critical turning point in his life.
It was Roddy's profuse internal bleeding that led doctors to recommend a colonoscopy. Roddy says, "I would think, 'I don't have to do this. I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me.'" But during the procedure, doctors discovered a tumor the size of a large orange, and scheduled him for emergency surgery.
To make matters worse, Roddy's surgery was scheduled for September 11. Roddy remembers preparing for surgery as he watched hijacked jetliners roar into the towers of the World Trade Center.
"I got up early in the morning and actually saw the planes fly into the trade towers live. I thought I was watching a movie... Everybody in the hospital was panicked," he recalled.
Roddy wanted to postpone the surgery, but his doctor warned him that waiting could cost him his life. "My doctor insisted on it... he said, 'If you don't do this, you're going to die.'"
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In addition to the tumor, Roddy's seven-and-a-half hour surgery revealed 13 stage three cancerous nodes. Doctors told Roddy that another 10 days would have meant a stage four colorectal cancer, which would have involved his liver and pancreas.
"So, I really was very lucky, and just came in under the wire," he said.
Colorectal cancer kills about 57,000 Americans a year and is the deadliest cancer among nonsmoking men and women. Experts recommend that all adults over 50 be screened for the disease. In Roddy's case, he had put off getting a colonoscopy for nearly 13 years; he now knows that preventative medicine could have made all the difference.
"It could all have been avoided simply by a colonoscopy, which is a simple procedure," he said. "People put it off, but it can really save your life. If I had done this thing 13 years ago, when they told me to do it, I never would have gone through this."
Today, Roddy's cancer is in remission and he has a new appreciation of life. He is an activist for colorectal cancer awareness and takes his celebrity very seriously.
"I think that you owe it to people to go public," he said. "I think you have to give something back. I simply hope that by expressing what's gone on with me that they will feel inspired to at least go and check it out because preventive medicine is the best medicine."
Currently, Rod Roddy is undergoing chemotherapy after follow up surgery revealed additional cancer. Roddy maintains it could have all been avoided with early screening.
