For weeks, a beloved television icon felt something wasn’t quite right. The energy that once carried her through countless long filming days had begun to fade, replaced by a quiet sense that something serious might be wrong.
At first, she brushed it off — the fatigue, the discomfort, the little changes that come with age. But when the feeling persisted, she decided to listen to her instincts and booked a doctor’s appointment over the summer.
What followed was a whirlwind of tests: a colonoscopy, MRI, PET scan, and finally, a biopsy. Each visit brought more questions than answers — until the day the doctor finally sat her down with a look that said everything before he even spoke.
That’s when Days of Our Lives legend Suzanne Rogers, 82, learned she had stage 2 colon cancer.
“It was all a shock,” Rogers shared in an interview with TV Insider. “I think I was in shock for several days because I take pretty good care of myself. But [the doctor] said, ‘It’s a good thing you caught it in time.’”
After wrapping filming for the summer, the longest-running actor in an American soap opera began treatment almost immediately — daily radiation and chemotherapy, five days a week for six weeks straight. “It was tough,” she admitted. “I was so tired of seeing doctors, but I thoroughly enjoyed my weekends because I didn’t have to go.”
Throughout her battle, Rogers leaned on her Days of Our Lives family for strength, especially co-star Linsey Godfrey, herself a cancer survivor. “It was scary,” Rogers said. “When I had to go see a doctor, one of them would go with me because once they say cancer, you don’t hear anything else.”
According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer — which begins in the colon or rectum — is among the most common cancers worldwide and one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in both men and women. In Rogers’ case, the disease had not yet spread to her lymph nodes, giving her a strong chance of recovery.
