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SALT LAKE CITY -- Early detection saved KSL Newsradio's Doug Wright from an encounter with colon cancer.
Last week, doctors discovered and removed a large -- possibly cancerous -- polyp after a routine colonoscopy procedure. Now, Wright is encouraging others to get screened and to follow up on it every few years.
On the air Friday, Wright was still recovering from his recent surgery, but he was also grateful everything turned out positively.
"That kind of caught me off guard," Wright said. "I thought the worst case scenario -- maybe a polyp or two. Wow. Different story."
Wright is one of thousands of people who can keep living. With a family history, he said it is a reminder to everyone to get screened.
"Well thank heaven," he said. "You wonder, you know, where would I be if I had waited a couple more months."
You wonder, you know, where would I be if I had waited a couple more months.
–Doug Wright
Wright's experience invokes the memory of another beloved Doug: Doug Miller. The on-air outdoorsman discovered his fatal cancer when it was already too late. He died shortly after in 2006. But his daughter Karen Coleman actively campaigns to increase awareness for screenings in her father's memory.
"I wish I would have known then what I know now," she said. "I wish I could have said: ‘Did you have a colonoscopy?' Why not?' I wish I could have saved my dad."
At the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Doctor Randall Burt said the procedure -- both feared and joked about -- really does save lives. Discovering polyps is an essential part of the screening.
"When we do a colonoscopy, we're really looking for polyps," Burt said. "Because when we remove polyps, the precancerous polyps, the colon cancer is prevented."
With the patient unconscious, a device with the camera on the end of it is inserted to search for any abnormalities.
The camera on the end of the colonoscope is incredibly small, but remarkably detailed -- able to detect even the tiniest polyp. It is a miracle of modern medicine: one that saved one Doug and might have saved another if only he had known.
Email: rpiatt@ksl.com
