Avi Rothstein I was born in 1950 in New York City. My family was of Eastern German descent; sadly, most of them died in the Holocaust. One uncle, who also lives in New York, seems hale and hearty.
0-19 I grew up in a poor neighborhood and didn’t get regular health care. Despite this, I was healthy child (though my mother often scolded me for not eating my vegetables). I was raised on a traditional Kosher diet; I didn’t smoke, even as a teenager, and drank only occasionally.	20-39 After college, I went to law school and then lived and worked as a lawyer in New York. My job carried very high stress, and I had little time to relax. I even ate on the run, except for rare weekends that I spent on Long Island with my wife’s family.
40-59 At age 41, I saw a doctor about my stomach. I had long suffered from an irritable bowel, but when the doctor found blood in my stool, even I was concerned. A subsequent colonoscopy revealed several polyps in my colon—one cancerous. The cancer had not spread, so the surgeon was able to remove it completely. The experience prompted me to have colonoscopies every other year. I want to catch the polyps before they can become cancerous. When my uncle heard I had colon cancer, he decided to go in for colon screening. When he was found to have polyps too, we both enrolled in a genetic testing program to see whether we carried predisposing genes. Both of us have a predisposing mutation, one of several known to increase risk of colon cancer	60+ years I am doing well these days, but now I eat my vegetables and see my doctor regularly. ·