From a young age, Randy League loved standing, one of the best habits to reduce the risk of cancer. He played football and basketball in high school, which he continued to do throughout his adulthood. “I enjoy playing golf, I enjoy any sport and just being outside, walking the dogs,” League, 46, told Business Insider.
From a young age, Randy League loved standing, one of the best habits to reduce the risk of cancer.
He played football and basketball in high school, which he continued to do throughout his adulthood. “I enjoy playing golf, I enjoy any sport and just being outside, walking the dogs,” League, 46, told Business Insider. The production manager for a commercial printing company in Columbus, Ohio, League also kept busy by being in charge of maintaining the entire building and three separate departments.
Then, in January 2025, he woke up in the middle of the night with a sharp pain that felt like extreme constipation. He spent the night struggling to go to the bathroom, so much so that some blood vessels burst in his eyes.
The pain continued to worsen and League avoided sitting as much as possible. “There were times when I couldn’t even spend much time in my office,” he said, opting to walk the floor of the building. When driving to and from work, he feared getting stuck in front of a train or anything that could delay the trip.
Months later, at the age of 45, he found out that he had stage 3 colon cancer, of which I had felt no symptoms before that first night.
“It’s hard to imagine that there was a tumor the size of a golf ball that just didn’t manifest itself until that day,” he said. “It was really strange.”
It took him 3 months to be diagnosed.
League did not have a referring doctor, which made the wait time for an appointment much longer. Randy League
Because League rarely got sick, he didn’t have a primary care doctor. It was also the reason she didn’t think about getting tested once she turned 45, the standard age for colon cancer screening.
While he was proactive in scheduling an appointment in advance, the wait time was 6 weeks.
In the meantime, he tried to treat his symptoms as best he could. His wife searched the Internet and they both thought the problem might be related to diet or hemorrhoids. League ended up trying suppositories, which only made the pain worse.
When he finally showed up for the appointment and had a very painful digital exam, the doctor ordered a diagnostic colonoscopy.
From then on, there was another 3 or 4 weeks of waiting, even though League was technically “fast-tracked” to an appointment. On the day of the colonoscopy, League went with his mother, since his wife was convinced the problem was hemorrhoids.
In April 2025, League was diagnosed with poorly differentiated invasive carcinoma with hepatoid differentiation, considered a rarer variant of colon cancer, as his tumor was located in the lower part of the colon and some of the cancer cells resembled liver cancer cells.
“I was shocked, scared and speechless at the same time,” he said. “It took me a couple of days to really calm down.”
He learned that he had a genetic predisposition to colon cancer.
League, who has Lynch syndrome, wants her daughter to get tested when she is older. Randy League
The plan was for League to start radiation and chemotherapy, hoping to shrink the tumor. before any surgery.
At your first radiation appointment, League was offered genetic testing to see if she had any inherited conditions linked to an increased risk of cancer. She learned she had Lynch syndrome, an asymptomatic genetic disease that affects 1 in 300 Americans and can greatly increase the chances of developing several types of cancer.
Colon cancer is the most common cancer associated with Lynch syndrome, increasing the lifetime risk of developing it by 22% to 74%.
League wanted his family to get tested. So far, his brother has tested negative. League, who has a 16-year-old daughter, hopes to be tested in the next four years, as Lynch syndrome would increase her risk of developing endometrial, uterine and ovarian cancers.
He qualified for milder cancer treatment.
League said he is grateful to be able to pursue immunotherapy instead of a more severe chemotherapy treatment. Randy League
Meanwhile, League continued his radiation and oral chemotherapy treatments for six weeks, which managed to shrink the tumor and make it less painful for him to sit. In June 2025, he met with his oncologist to discuss his chemotherapy protocol: the plan was to continue with intravenous and oral chemotherapy.
Because she was diagnosed with Lynch syndrome and a specific genetic mutation, League qualified for immunotherapy, a sometimes milder cancer treatment that trains the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells, rather than destroying both normal and cancer cells through chemotherapy.
“I was very grateful,” League said. “I’m sure the chemotherapy would have done a good job, but it would also have exacted a much higher price.”
League was able to continue working and only took time off for appointments. “I have a family that I’m responsible for and a mortgage, and I felt like the best thing I could do while I could was work,” he said. His main treatment symptom was extreme fatigue and difficulty sitting for long periods of time. “I couldn’t operate the forklifts and things like that.”
As of June 2026, League is cancer-free and will continue to receive regular MRIs and CT scans, as well as annual colonoscopies. Because of your Lynch syndrome diagnosis, you will also be screened for other cancers that you may be predisposed to, such as stomach cancer.
League said one of his biggest takeaways was the importance of having a primary care doctor and getting screened for colon cancer. “I don’t even know if anything would have been caught for me, but I know the timelines would have been different and that would have reduced a lot of the stress and anxiety that I had to deal with early on,” he said.