Colorectal cancer's surprising Canadian hero

One summer evening when she was 20 years old, something terrible happened to Viana Luke. "I can't figure it out, but I do know that it was a violation." Then people started asking questions. "What a creep! Who else knows about this?" From CBCs personally, this is Agent Leila. The story of how a victim went undercover. So bring it on, let's go, let's get a confession. Available now on CBC Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. I'm Dr. Brian Goldman, this is White Cop Black Art. In young people, rates of colorectal cancer are skyrocketing. The Canadian Cancer Society says the likelihood of a colorectal cancer diagnosis under the age of 50 is now more than double what it was in previous generations. This week, we're revisiting an episode we first aired in March 2024. It's about an exceptional young person who had colorectal cancer and wanted to make it easier for younger people to get screened. We have an important update at the end of the show you won't want to miss. Plains, planes overhead, we're in a flight path. A beige brick, two-story house sits at the end of a long driveway with a pickup truck. The home is on a non-descript cul-de-sac on the east side of Hamilton Mountain. In a district called Mount Hope. Hello! Brian Goldman. How you doing? I'm great, how are you? Not bad, not bad. I'm good. It's me, how you doing? Me and producer Samir Chopra are here to meet a man who can use all the hope you can get. Come in. It's okay, Sammy. Sunny. Yeah, son. That's a good name for a dog. He's a Boston Terrier who's definitely from Boston. Yeah, he's tough. Hello. So, my name is Bishop Regante. I'm a recording artist/actor/activist. I was raised in Scarborough, Ontario, and I'm just a currently fighting cancer, and I'm currently fighting outdated policies in our healthcare system. Couple of big fights. Couple of big fights, but I'm a warrior, and I actually come from the cloth of being a battle rapper back in the day. Bishop has swirly looks, a shaved head, and a face you might remember. You gotta pass it on a message. I ain't gonna hold on with a message. You gotta find that cut. In this scene from the hit TV show Orphan Black with Tatiana Maslani, you can't take your eyes off him. He's also been one of Canada's better known hip-hop performers. His 2017 single "Hard Times" is an app song for Bishop today. A middle-aged guy with stage 4 colon cancer. Along with the cancer in his belly, there's a fire. We'll get to that in a bit. Are you still rapping? Yeah, absolutely. About are you rapping about cancer? I actually did. I have a weird story about this. This is the first round of chemo that I did. I'm on Round 10 Monday. The first round of chemo that I did. I experienced very vivid wild dreams. I had a dream that I was on a radio show in LA swaying the morning. It's called. They asked me to freestyle. That's when you wrap off the top of your head. I was like, "All right, cool." And I just did it. In the dream. In my dream. I did it. I wrapped it. It was incredible. Everybody's going nuts. When I woke up, I knew the rap still. Like in my head. It wasn't something that I had done before. It wasn't something that I had pre-recorded or anything like that. It was just something that was in my dream. I woke up and I didn't remember it. So I told my son, Carlito, I was like, "Hey, listen to this. I had this dream last night. And this was the rap." And my voice was all messed up. I was like, "Keymore, right?" My first round. So I didn't know what I was expecting. And he was like, "Dad, you got to record that." I was like, "Really?" And he was like, "Yeah, you got to record that." That's coming from a whole different place. Looking me staring death in the face. Foo for thought. Looking like no one left you a plate. How many prayers and blessings until you're next to the gate? Breaths don't count until you've got to count. How many left you could take. Colorectal cancer is common and deadly. The Cancer Society says it's the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men and the third leading cause in women. Long thought of as a disease of older Canadians. It's been showing up in younger people like Bishop, whose symptoms began in his early 40s. So at the beginning of this entire journey, starting at the two years prior to my diagnosis, I would have a lot of stomach pain, a lot of what would be told to me that it would be irritable bowel syndrome. I would eat food or I wouldn't want to eat because my stomach would be a little bit off. That would turn into diarrhea. Which later would turn into blood in my stool. So I was like, oh, this is different. But I didn't drink heavy. But if I went out and drank, by the time I got home and if I went to the bathroom, they'd be blood in my stool. So I'd be like, oh, maybe this is because I'm drinking. Maybe I should, which slowed me down from drinking. My doctors would say that's hemorrhoids. They told me that I had irritable bowel syndrome, which at that time I was told like, you know, you just got to kind of work on your diet, fix the food you eat and stuff like that. And how did they come to that conclusion? Just off of me talking to them about my symptoms. The examine you? Never. Never. Never. Never had the rectal exams like that. But I was always just, I would talk to them and tell them I felt. And I was told, these are your diagnosis. Is the blood bright red? That's hemorrhoids. You're too young for anything else to be worried about. Too young for what? To be worried about things like cancer. Bishop says his doctors didn't tell him that his symptoms, bloody stool, abdominal pain and a change in bowel habits, might be due to cancer. His doctors told him he was too young. One key person figured it might be cancer. His partner, Melanie, who is also an experienced nurse. She badgered him to demand that he be tested for cancer. Melanie, she's the reason why I'm able to have this interview with you right now. As I was going on this journey, my current doctor, who's a great doctor, and thankful for him as well for listening to us push for a colonoscopy. Because he was also, it was like a tape recording with all the doctors, right? It was the same thing. You're too young. No, you don't look like you don't. So you actually asked, you said to doctors, could I have cancer and they said to you. No chance. You're too young. You don't look like you have cancer. Like, because it's easier. Irritable bowel syndrome. It's easier. It's easier to diagnosis. And maybe they don't want to give you that fear, right? But I was like, but it was Melanie. Melanie was like, listen, for two years, you've consistently had these problems with your stomach, pain in your stomach, blood in your stool. And my current doctor was like, you've got hemorrhoids. You don't have any significant weight loss or anything going on? Like that. You look healthy. You have hemorrhoids, so here's some cream. And I was using cream. And I was like, it's not doing anything. It's not changing anything. So Melanie was like, you have to ask for a colonoscopy. We just need to rule this out right now. Figure it out and get it done. And let's just get this test. So we pushed my doctor and he was like, okay. I'll give you a referral. And how far along? When did you have a conversation where you took Melanie's suggestion that you should have a colonoscopy? How long ago was that? Last September. So September. Like five months ago. Yeah. September? Almost six months ago. But Melanie had been saying it's not literally you need a colonoscopy, but she was always saying the doctors are wrong. Something's going on. You've had this consistently for a while. But we couldn't figure out what was happening, what was going on. And so we were trying different methods of figuring that out. And then Eureka, she was like, you need a colonoscopy. When was the colonoscopy? October. I think it was October 6th. I went in. Friday. I think so. I went to sleep. I woke up. And I heard the nurse talking to other patients. Oh, you're good. See you in five years. Oh, you're done. You're good. Everything's going to see you in three years. You're good. And then she came into my section. And she said, did you want me to bring your wife in to be here when the doctor sees you? And I was like, and I'm a woozy still. I just woke up right. I'm like, why are you saying that to me? You didn't say that to everybody else. What's going on? Something. Oh, no, nothing. Everything's okay. You're just going to see the doctor. I'm like, what's wrong with me? Then Melanie came in. We waited for the doctor. And as soon as he spoke and said what he said, internally I collapsed. Like my entire insides just were like, it's like a house of cars. And it just went shattered. And I held onto Melanie's hand for dear life. I'd never forget this moment. For dear life as the tears just streamed out of my eyes. And I thought about my son. I thought about my daughter. I thought about my family. I thought about my career. I thought about my life. Everything in that moment. And I didn't hear one word the doctor said after you have a tumor and it's cancerous. You know that sort of cliché thing where your life flashed before your eyes. It's nothing cliché about it. It literally flashed out. before my eyes. As tears were pouring and I was holding on to Malie and she was taking she was so strong that she was just listening to every word the doctor said and just and just made sure she understood because she's very good at that. She's a nurse. She's been a nurse for 25 years like she's incredible. So when we went home it was like okay put your boxing gloves on Bishop if it's time to work. So fear and sadness, sadness, fear, sadness, terrified, disbelief, just destroyed. It's it's it's a nightmare. A couple of things I want to I want to clear it first. You talked about the moment finding out that you had the cancer and of course they would have done a biopsy right there right there in the colonoscopy but then you had to have CT scans and MRIs what so what happened next. So that's a couple of weeks to get that done so I was terrified waiting for CT scans waiting for MRI and then I got them and that's when I found out that there was some spreading and there was some stuff going on. Where where had it spread? It had spread from it was like the tumor was like eight centimeters so it was penetrating the walls the walls of my rectum. There had been some deposits in my parents and Neal walls and then there was there was like nodules on my liver nodules on my lungs but they weren't sure exactly what those nodules were. Bishop had metastases in his peritoneal or abdominal cavity which for most patients carries a grave prognosis. For now he's receiving chemo to try and shrink the cancer in his abdomen so that he might be able to have surgery. So that was scary. It was it was a it was a pretty heavy load to bear but I felt like things didn't move as fast as I wanted them to or as fast as we wanted them to but once I started my rounds I felt a complete change. I noticed that the bleeding was done. The bleeding stopped. The pain stopped. The blockage stopped. I was going to the bathroom properly. So Melanie's like holy shit it's working. The chemo. By the time I was a couple rounds in and I started talking to my oncologist I was like hey I don't have this anymore. I don't have this anymore. What does that mean? It means we're on the right path. Again I get reinvigorated. I get stronger and stronger and then yeah and then and then all of a sudden I found a purpose. A purpose in his own survival and maybe even the survival of an untold number of younger people who have colorectal cancer and don't yet know it. We'll be right back. One summer evening when she was 20 years old something terrible happened to Vienna Luke. I can't figure it out but I do know that it was a violation. Then people started asking questions. What a creep. Who else knows about this? From CBCs personally this is Agent Leila. So bring it on let's go. Let's get a confession. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey it's Brian. Each week white co-black art brings you amazing stories about real people experiencing healthcare in Canada, the good and they're not so good. I've got a favor to ask. If you like what you're hearing hit the follow button on whatever app you're using so you don't miss an episode. You're listening to white co-black art. This week rap artist actor, cancer patient and activist Bishop Brigante. Bishop was diagnosed with cancer only after he got symptoms. Colorectal Cancer Canada says screening with regular colonoscopies can detect cancers early. Well before there are symptoms when they're curable. Bishop's cancer was stage four. What does that mean to you? Having stage four. Nothing because I don't I didn't put any stock into that because I didn't want that to over ride my willpower my mindset or my warrior mentality. I didn't I don't I don't put stock into that. I know it's dangerous. I know it's scary but could it have been avoided? Yeah. I have this crazy metaphor about why early detection is so important. Imagine putting yourself in a boxing ring getting put into a profile but your handcuffed and you're blindfolded and the box is just peeping the crap out of you for one round for two rounds for three rounds for four rounds and then all of a sudden you take off your blindfolds take off your gloves you take off your handcuffs now you're in the fight. That's stage four to me. Somebody beat me up while I was handicapped. Well I didn't know what was going on. A referee allowed it to happen. Who's the referee? But now my my blindfolds off and my handcuffs are off and I'm in the fourth round so it's just I just got to figure out what's going on adjusted and get the ass open. So that's you and the cancer. There's also you putting your story out there talking to me talking to the media. What are you trying to accomplish there? I put it to you it's very simple. I want to save lives. I found a purpose because I felt that there is a broken system an outdated system an outdated way of looking at certain things. I respect the medical field I respect doctors I respect the work that they put into get into the place and the positions that they are in. This is nothing targeting them as being villainous malicious or having some sort of agenda that doesn't. You just think they're wrong in this case. I just think it's very outdated and I think it's wrong in the fact that there's a criteria an age criteria for a physical disease that anybody at any age can get. So how can you have a criteria based on the fact that if one person that's 15 can get it there shouldn't be an age criteria. If one person in their 20s can get it that's enough. One person dying from it is enough that we're going to really think about this. Okay sure there are stats previously back in the day outdated stats that say people that are older than 50 years old are the ones that are developing colorectal cancer. But they're developed it. They developed it. It was developed. It wasn't something that was like I'm 50 years old. I got colorectal cancer. No. This is something that develops polyps. They grow. They turn into tumors. They turn into cancer. It's turned some of them are benign. But they turn into something. So when you say that somebody developed colorectal cancer in their 50s. Well it was probably started in their 40s or it could have been in their 30s. I was told that this could have been a slow burn for me. This could have been something that was developing for years. As part of this public advocacy, bishops started a petition at Change.org. colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for men and women and early detection is crucial for successful treatment. We believe it is time to change the age criteria that doctors use to determine when patients should undergo diagnostic screening. Currently in a week we had 10,000 signatures. In a week I started getting calls from news. I started getting changed.org started contacting. I was like, hey, this is, you know, you're picking up some steam here. And then one of my supporters, Mickey O'Brien, never met him. He says, hey, you know, I know the health critic, French gelinas. She's a part of the NDP party. I'm from Scarborough. I'm a rapper. I don't know what NDP stands for. I'm like, but she's a health critic. I'm thinking I would love to talk to anybody in parliament. I don't know what that means, but I would love to talk to anybody a part of the government that may have something to help me figure out what's next year. She thought I was calling for me. And when she learned that I was actually calling for all those that come after me and trying to avoid as many nightmares as possible, that's when she said, oh, we're going to do something here. And I was like, okay, she's like, well, we're back in Queen's Park, February 20th. I'm going to bring your petition in because you can't read it. You can't do that. And she's like, I'm going to, it's going to be read and tabled officially. Myself, Melanie, my father, my best friend masters. We all went down to Queen's Park, February 20th. So we had been put into this balcony and I had seen this room on the news before never painted any mine because I'm was never into politics. But I remember seeing it and I remember being in there and I was like, oh my goodness, like, what, what are we, where are we? What is this? This is like some secret stuff or something like this is the government. I mean, you don't know. If you don't know, it's very surreal. It's very surreal. But again, I am the prize. What is going to happen here? Let's wait for it. And then France introduced me and my family. - Patitions. I recognize the member for Nickelbelt. - Thank you, Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to thank Mr. Bishop Preganti for this petition. He and his spouse wrote this up at a moment in his life where he really needed care. He now wants to care for other people in Ontario. And in less than a month, they have collected 17,639 signatures on this petition. It reads as follow. Lowering the age criteria for colonnowsky people. - People stood up on the clapping and were like, and then when it came time for France to read the petition and she did, there was this moment where I literally left my body and I started thinking about the nightmare again, the moment that I was diagnosed with cancer, the fear, the terror, the sadness, the disbelief, the grip that I had on my girl's hand, holding on for dear life. As France was reading the petition, I thought of millions of other people after me. That are going to experience that nightmare. And I said, change has to come. And everywhere that France said in that petition reading was so powerful that I started seeing in my mind the millions dropped down to hundreds of thousands, dropped down to thousands, just kept decreasing. Victims of this horrible disease and I envisioned it. It happened in my mind. And then I came back into my body and I sat there and I was just like, and I looked at France and she thanked me and everything and I was just like, God bless you. And I so believe that that out of body experience that I experienced of seeing all those casualties become people that just got to live their lives. And the numbers just dropped so drastically. It was the most powerful thing I've ever experienced in my body and it just gave me more purpose. - There's a raging debate over what age screening should kick in. For Bishop and others like him who have symptoms, he says there should be no age limit and no debate. - You want the petition to spread awareness. Do you want there to be a policy change? Are you hoping that the province will do something different when it comes to colon colorectal cancer? - They're going to. - I believe that they're going to because it's a win-win for the people and for the government. But yes, in a perfect world I want the age criteria to be removed and this procedure to be given to anybody that has symptoms. Symptoms, not asymptomatic people. Surely we got fit testing for that. We got other means of checking things out if it's not. But if you fit the criteria symptomatically, then I don't think that there should ever be any age criteria. It is realistic, we will make change. I don't have an option. It's not going to stop until we change. We make change. - And other jurisdictions have lowered the screening age. - Somebody said somewhere that in the U.S., they lowered it to 45, still, not enough. But right now we're provincially, we're talking provincially because of Queen's Park. I've gotten phone calls from people in Ottawa that would like to have a sit down and have a conversation and make things happen. I can't speak on it because it hasn't, it hasn't come to fruition in the level that I can be like, "Hey, listen, this is who's involved "and this is what's going on." But it's happening. - And it's happening because Bishop thinks earlier diagnosis in younger people saves the government money. That's the pitch to the head. His main message is a pitch to the heart. Which, despite his own personal fight against cancer, beats strong. - So this is an off week for you, as far as chemo is concerned, and you've got round 10 coming up. - How are you feeling today? - Today I feel good. I've been getting, again, purpose reinforces my strength. And when I'm on my recovery week, I'm generally at the start of it. I'm generally a lot stronger than I was the week before. My chemo weeks are the rough, the rough, it's rough. Like I do three days straight, 24 hours of chemo. And I'm out of there. I call it a chemo coma 'cause I can't talk. I can't really move that much. Sleeping quote unquote sleeping. - Vomiting? - Yes, yes. I don't get a lot of vomiting. I usually get one big one. But last week, around nine, I ended up getting two, which is not bad. - So that I understand, that's a lot of chemo, a lot of rounds, what's the endpoint? What's the objective of it? I mean, obviously to live, but is there an intermediate kind of what's supposed to happen next if you respond to the chemo? - So I have found out that in February, I got some scans back that there was some shrinkage, which is amazing. But I have two different situations happening 'cause because of the spread, it became parents in Neal, Carcinoma, which is, you know, in my stomach lining, in the walls of my stomach, there's deposits. They haven't changed, but they haven't grown or spread. So that's a more complex surgery. And the end goal with my chemo is that I should be having surgery like the colorectal surgery, a colorectal surgery, and then the parents in Neal at once. So they gotta get in with the microscope to really check and let me know if the surgery can actually be done. - So that's uncertain. - Yeah, which is, that's the only scary part, but I don't focus on it. I feel like because the chemo's reacting to my tumor and drinking it, I just believe that it's gonna manifest. My mindset is that I'm gonna win. I don't have a choice. - Thank you for speaking with me. The pleasure is 100% mine. Thank you so much for even giving me a voice with such an esteemed person like yourself. Thank you. - On March 30th, 2025, Bishop Regante died of colorectal cancer. He was 46. Earlier this month, Ontario announced that the province is lowering its colorectal cancer, screening age from 50 to 45, becoming the second province after PEI to do so. CancerCare Ontario says the change is in response to a notable increase in younger people being diagnosed. The move comes into effect on July the 1st. It's a fitting legacy to the memory of Bishop Regante. That's our show this week. In the weeks to come, we're doing a program on what happens when Canadians get injured or sick while traveling out of the country. If you've got a story about dealing with travel insurers and hospitals abroad, email us at [email protected]. Whitecoat Black Art was produced this week by Samir Chabra with help from Jennifer Warren and Stephanie Dubois. Our digital writer is Brandy Wikeley, our senior producer is Colleen Ross. I'm Brian Goldman and I'm proud to bring you stories from the Canadian side of the green. See you next week.