Mark Giles
Cancer Survivor

Growing up in Columbia, Mark Giles was a star athlete at A.C. Flora High School. He played quarterback at Brigham Young University in the 1970s. He and his wife Nancy founded the successful dance studio “Southern Strutt” in Irmo in 1982 where thousands of dancers have learned and perfected their moves. He’s a father of five and grandfather of eight. And he thought he was invincible.

In fact, he didn’t go to a doctor for 25 years. He wasn’t having routine health screenings such as a colonoscopy.
But this year, at the urging of a nurse practitioner at Lexington Family Practice Irmo, a Lexington Medical Center physician practice, he scheduled a colonoscopy. And the results changed his life.

“When I woke up, they told me, ‘Mark, we found something that doesn’t look good,’” he said. “Immediately, my life changed. I began reflecting on everything in the past and how many people tried to tell me to take better care of myself and get the screenings done. You’ve got to listen to people who know what they’re talking about.”

Tests confirmed colon cancer, and Mark’s gastroenterologist sent him to Roland “Trey” Craft III, MD, FACS, at Lexington Surgery, a Lexington Medical Center physician practice. While Dr. Craft was optimistic about the surgery, he couldn’t promise the cancer had not spread beyond the colon.

“Before Nancy and I walked out, I told Dr. Craft I had a wonderful feeling about him. I really felt that the Lord had a hand in choosing who would be there to be my surgeon. It was a wonderful, peaceful feeling when I left that day,” Mark said.

Mark began thinking about the future, his life and the importance of regular medical checkups. Inside an operating room at Lexington Medical Center, Dr. Craft removed more than 40 percent of Mark’s colon along with several lymph nodes to test for cancer. Everything went well.

“The doctor came in and said, ‘I have some super-duper news for you. You are showing no signs whatsoever of the cancer having escaped your colon.’” Mark stayed at Lexington Medical Center for six days, where he called his care “top-notch.” He said the support of the medical teams, his wife and family helped get him through the cancer diagnosis and surgery.

“Mark’s decision to have a colonoscopy, while scary and inconvenient, gave us an opportunity to cure him of colon cancer. This screening tool significantly determined the positive outcome of Mark’s health event,” Dr. Craft said. Nancy said the experience scared Mark tremendously, but ultimately left him with a strong sense of gratitude.

“He realizes it could have been a different story. He approached everything with a grateful heart and has become an advocate for testing and screenings,” she said. “He tells people to take their health seriously.” And the couple’s five children — who are in their 30s and 40s — are now committed to having cancer screenings at the appropriate times.

Mark’s prognosis is good. It doesn’t appear he will need chemotherapy or radiation treatments. His goal now is to convince others it is never too late to schedule health screenings. “I was one of those people who thought, ‘This will never happen to me.’ But it did happen to me,” he said. “I should have had the test years ago. It could have saved myself and my family a lot of pain.”