Testing your genes for cancer risk is way cheaper now — and it could save your life
A few years ago, Junius Nottingham Jr. was on a family vacation in Florida with his wife, his daughter and his son, Jeremy. Jeremy was 28 years old, over 6 feet tall and athletic. He had followed his dad into law enforcement and had already built a career working for federal agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service.
"Jeremy told my wife that when he has a bowel movement, he bleeds a lot," Nottingham recalls. "And so my wife says, 'It's probably hemorrhoids. When you go back to Birmingham, Alabama, go see your doctor."
His son did, and his family was blindsided by what happened next.
"We get a call the day after Jeremy went back saying that Jeremy had Stage 4 colon cancer," says Nottingham. "My wife and I are looking at each other like, 'What? What's going on?'"
Unbeknownst to them, members of the Nottingham family have a genetic variant that confers a high risk of colon cancer and other types of cancer. And in
