THE FUSE

Dave Runkel went to his primary care physician with a problem: the 36-year-old engineer was passing blood. He was a Navy vet living in South Carolina with a career that required frequent overseas travel. His wife also worked full-time, and together they were raising three kids between the ages of 6 and 14. Seeing blood in his stool was disturbing to Runkel, because he’d intermittently had extremely loose stools and searing abdominal pain for nearly a decade—but none of his doctors had ever taken it seriously. Runkel went to the doctor determined to get a colonoscopy. The doctor hesitated—Runkel was younger than the screening age of 45, and colorectal cancer is still relatively rare at his age. Runkel became frustrated and decided to lie to the doctor and tell him he had a family history of cancer. The doctor ordered the test. When he finally got the colonoscopy several months later, the doctors found colorectal cancer.