Comedian Ron Bennington Recalls Early Symptoms of Stage 4 Colon Cancer: ‘Sick As I’ve Ever Been’

For about a month earlier this year, comedian and longtime radio personality Ron Bennington had never felt more ill in his life. “I was as sick as I’ve ever been,” the 67-year-old tells TODAY.com. “I couldn’t hold any food down, and it was like a ridiculous amount of pain and vomiting.” For weeks, he pushed off going to the doctor, he says. “(I was) thinking maybe if we just have a popsicle, everything will be fine, some juice.” Finally, in March, Bennington contacted a local healthcare provider, who suggested a CAT scan. The next day, he got a call advising him to go to the hospital or emergency room. “I go, ‘Why?’ He goes, ‘Maybe there’s a little blockage. I don’t know.’ And as soon as I was in there, I was being operated on within a half an hour later, and the whole thing changed. And then the next morning, they said this is not curable,” Bennington recalls. He got his Stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis while going back and forth to Florida for vacation, which was “really relaxing,” he jokes. But the truth is he wasn’t upset when he received the news. “My initial thing was gratitude for the life that I lived, and I was actually telling the doctor, ‘Look, I understand that you’re upset telling me this ... but I’m fine. I’m great.’ I just immediately thought, ‘What a wonderful life I’ve had,’” he says. “I know the funniest people in the world. I’ve interviewed everybody that I grew up being in love with. I have a wonderful family and a wonderful wife, and everything I got away with. I never worked a day in my life ever — bad student, bad employee, and somehow people say, ‘Just come back, do it again.’” Looking back, Bennington says it was “insane” of him not to seek medical care for so long because of how much pain he was in. But given his history, it wasn’t surprising. “I never went to a doctor once in my life, and it worked out decade after decade,” he jokes, adding that he believes men are afraid of seeming “sick.” The only demographic that may be even more afraid of hospitals? Comics, Bennington says. It’s a phenomenon he’s seen play out first hand while recording his new podcast, “Portcast” on SiriusXM, where he interviews fellow comedians during his chemo treatments in New York City. So far, Michael Che, Shane Gillis, Stavros Halkias and Jessica Kirson have been featured. New episodes come out every Tuesday. Bennington expects to continue chemotherapy for the rest of his life, and he’s also taking a clinical trial drug. “I try to do everything that they ask of me. People say ‘fight’ — fight how?” he quips. “If somebody came in here named Cancer, I’d knock them out. Now, I just try to take my medicine when they tell me to and eat right. That’s it.” The hope is that the treatments give him more time, but he says he’s “OK with everything that happens.” Reflecting on his diagnosis, Bennington says he wants people to understand how quickly their lives can change, and that your health challenges affect more than just you. “Anything can change a family in a New York minute,” he says. “I want to remember that this happens to all of us together.” One of the goal’s for “Portcast” is to encourage people to stay on top of their health by showing the power of open conversations, says Dr. Mark Pochapin, host of SiriusXM’s “Doctor Radio” and gastroenterologist at NYU Langone. “The American psyche is you go to a doctor when you’re sick, we need to change that,” he explains. “You go to a doctor when you’re well to stay well.”