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Former 7th Heaven child star Beverley Mitchell is looking back on her cancer scare from her early 30s.
“Yesterday, I got a colonoscopy, and I am sharing this because I think that there’s a lot of people that are freaked out by it or embarrassed,” Mitchell, 45, said in a Saturday, March 7, Instagram video. “I have no shame. Quite a few years ago, I had seen a doctor who looked at my blood work and was, like, ‘Hey, I’m not saying anything but it looks like you have markers that are similar to those that have colon cancer.”
Mitchell, who was in her early 30s at the time, underwent a colonoscopy for further clarity.
“I went to the gastro[enterologists], demanded to get a colonoscopy. At the time, I also had hemorrhoids so I had experienced blood in my stool,” she explained. “The gastro agreed, so I had a colonoscopy. Come to find out, I had the biggest precancerous polyp he has ever seen in a young woman.”
According to Mitchell, she “pretty much saved [her] own life” by advocating for the medical procedure.
“I followed up, three years later [and] had another colonoscopy. It was perfectly clean,” she said. “Then, I was bad. It has been eight years since my last colonoscopy. I was supposed to be on the regimen every three years. It’s been eight. I was well overdue.”
Mitchell finally decided to get a colonoscopy after seeing various “signs” to go back to the doctor, including James Van Der Beek’s recent death. (Fellow child actor Van Der Beek died in February after battling stage III colorectal cancer. He was 48.)
Barry Watson, Jessica Biel and Beverley Mitchell in ‘7th Heaven.’ Spelling Prod./ Courtesy of Everett Collection
“Listen, if we get screened and if we go and get our colonoscopies and we pay attention, we can catch things early,” Mitchell stated. “I am happy to report that my colonoscopy came back perfectly clean, so now I’m on the five-year cycle [and] I’m no longer high-risk.”
While Mitchell was initially fearful about what doctors would find in her labwork, she’s grateful that she didn’t wait any longer to undergo a colonoscopy.
“Putting it off isn’t going to make the situation any better, it’s going to make it worse,” the actress added. “This is my PSA that if you’ve been putting off your colonoscopy, go and get it now.”
Mitchell previously faced a cancer scare in 2020 when she was pregnant with daughter Mayzel, telling Us that she had to “deal with skin cancer.”
“[I was] making sure I could get that removed while going through the pregnancy and going through [the coronavirus pandemic],” she exclusively told Us at the time. “I have to keep reminding myself what I am in control of and then letting go of what I’m not. I think that has helped me get through everything. … It’s a super crazy time if you’re, like, completely hormonal, emotional and big.”
In addition to Mayzel, Mitchell and husband Michael Cameron share daughter Kenzie, 13, and son Hutton, 11.
