During a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Dayne said, “I’ve been cancer-free for four years now. I’ve been on the path of being very ardent about taking care of my health and being on top of my colonoscopies.

“There are no guarantees in life, but especially as women, we need to advocate for our health and be on top of our checkups.”

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Dayne felt completely healthy when doctors found the problem, and it was her commitment to regular screenings that caught it.

“I was already on top of my colonoscopies when I was told I had a lot of polyps. It was through a routine checkup that they found a very aggressive polyp,” she explained.

“This is how quickly these things can escalate and really take a turn. But my mindset was, ‘What do I do right now?’ I was very much in action mode.”

The singer was first told to start screening at age 50, but she believes people today need to think about their health much sooner.

She continued, “You really have to think about your timeline earlier than we’ve ever done. Most people are busy working, busy being parents, busy just being out there juggling. We can’t put our health on the sidelines.”

Catching Cancer Before It Speaks Up

Dayne’s story is a reminder that colon cancer doesn’t always announce itself.

Polyps are small growths that form on the lining of the colon or rectum, and while many are harmless, some can develop into cancer over time. Spotting and removing them during a colonoscopy is one of the best tools doctors have for stopping the disease early, which is why screening can be lifesaving even for people who feel perfectly healthy.

For Dayne, the diagnosis came as a shock. She admitted she had always viewed colon cancer as a man’s disease.

“I thought it was a male-dominated disease, like prostate cancer,” she said.

Instead of waiting for answers, Dayne pushed for them, starting with why her body kept producing polyps in the first place.

“Be your own warrior, be your champion,” she said. “And that’s what I did.”

She believes speaking up early is key, because when you’re seriously ill, “oftentimes, it’s just yourself.”

Four years later, Dayne says facing cancer sparked a stronger drive to keep going and introduced her to fellow survivors she might never have met otherwise.

“For me, it turned on a lightbulb, a desire to live, a desire to really push through things,” she shared.

That renewed energy shows up in how she cares for her body today. Dayne keeps a strict daily wellness routine built around supplements, nourishing foods and regular movement like yoga, Pilates and stretching, along with a few quiet minutes each morning to center herself before the day begins.

“I want to be optimal,” she said.

Back in the Spotlight

All of that preparation is leading up to a career first. Dayne is set to launch her debut Las Vegas residency, named after her signature hit, and she says staying healthy is what makes the demanding schedule possible.

“I have to have a healthy lifestyle to meet the demands of what it takes to be physically on stage every night,” she said.

Dayne’s “Tell It to My Heart” residency at Harrah’s Las Vegas kicks off Nov. 24, 2026, and runs through Jan. 2. Tickets are on sale now.

Vowing to Fight Since Her Diagnosis

A mother of two, Dayne vowed to fight from the moment she was diagnosed in 2022.

“I was lying in the hospital after surgery. I got really, really sick, and it gave me a new sense of purpose,” Dayne explained to People, in an earlier interview.

“I said, ‘I’m not ready to go. I’m going to fight this.’”

When colon cancer is caught early, before it spreads beyond the colon, surgery alone can sometimes be curative.

“Stage 1 through 3, all of those patients get surgical therapy if they’re healthy enough to tolerate it. Stage 2 is a little bit more in between,” Colorectal Surgeon and Surgical Oncologist Dr. Heather Yeo previously told SurvivorNet.

“It really depends on the depth of the tumor into the colon wall and the risk that it has to spread. If it has bad features– for example, if when they look at the pathology slides under the microscope, if they see that it’s involving some of the vessels nearby, then that is a higher risk factor. And then, those patients might be more likely to benefit from chemotherapy,” Dr. Yeo continued.

In certain cases, doctors may recommend chemotherapy before surgery.

Medical oncologist Dr. Paul Oberstein explains that this approach is used when a tumor is especially large and needs to be shrunk to make surgery safer, or when there’s limited spread outside the colon.

“There are two kinds of circumstances in which we give chemotherapy prior to surgery,” medical oncologist Dr. Paul Oberstein explains to SurvivorNet.

“If the tumor is very large, it may make sense to try to shrink it through chemotherapy prior to going to surgery. The reason to do that would be to make the surgery less difficult for the patient, and the recovery less challenging,” Dr. Oberstein said.

“Another circumstance in which we would recommend chemotherapy before surgery is the limited number of cases in which the tumor has spread outside of the colon,” Dr. Oberstein continued.

Even if surgery is successful at removing your cancer, there are always risks to surgery. If you hear the term “complications,” that can mean anything from an infection that is treated with antibiotics to a problem with the surgery itself that requires another operation.

Behind the scenes, though, cancer pushed Dayne to her physical limits, and her weight eventually dropped to 98 pounds.

“I even walked weirdly,” she recalled, before adding, “But that’s one trial and tribulation. That’s not the story.”

Dayne first broke through in 1987 with “Tell It to My Heart,” which reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and launched a string of Top 10 hits, including the Grammy-nominated “I’ll Always Love You” and her No. 1 single “Love Will Lead You Back,” according to Billboard.

She later moved into acting, appearing in the 1994 film “Love Affair,” the Las Vegas Sun reported, and in 2001 she made her Broadway debut as Princess Amneris in “Aida,” according to The Advocate.

Understanding & Treating Colorectal Cancer

Colon cancer is a type of cancer that affects your large intestine (colon) or the end of your intestine (rectum). Your doctor might call this type of cancer colorectal cancer.

The cancer starts when abnormal lumps called polyps grow in the colon or rectum. If you don’t have these polyps removed, they can sometimes change into cancer.  It takes up to 10 years for a colon polyp to become a full-blown cancer, according to SurvivorNet experts. If you get the recommended screenings, your doctor will have time to remove any polyps that form, before they can cause problems.

While experts don’t know exactly what causes colon cancer, they do point to certain risk factors, such as diet, smoking tobacco, and drinking alcohol. Having a family history of colorectal cancer can also increase the risk.

Both men and women can get colon cancer. Overall, it is the third most common cancer in people of both genders in the United States. But it’s also very preventable, with the recommended screenings.

Dr. Heather Yeo, colorectal surgeon at Weill Cornell Medicine, wants to remind people how far the treatment of this disease has come.

“One of the most exciting things about my job is that we’ve made a lot of progress on treatment options,” Dr. Yeo said in a previous interview with SurvivorNet. “However … while they’re living longer, [patients] are still living with colon cancer.”

She explained that patients with stage I to III colon cancer typically need to undergo surgery.

Choosing the Right Surgery for Your Colon Cancer While Avoiding Marketing Gimmicks 

During surgery, the surgeon removes the section of the colon with the cancer, along with nearby lymph nodes — a procedure that’s known as a partial colectomy. Surgeons can perform it through an open incision, but increasingly it’s being done laparoscopically through several small incisions using specialized tools. Surgery is followed by chemotherapy to get rid of any cancer cells that might have been left behind.

Related: The Type of Colon Surgery Depends on the Location of the Tumor

After a partial colectomy, surgeons typically reconnect the two ends of the colon. But in some cases, the surgery creates enough of a disruption in the colon that it becomes difficult to have a normal bowel movement afterward. In that case, the surgeon will perform a procedure called a colostomy, creating a temporary or permanent opening through the belly through which stool can exit the body. Wastes collect in a pouch worn on the outside of the abdomen, called an ostomy bag.

“A colostomy or an ostomy, is taking the bowel and attaching it to the skin so the bowel movement would go into a bag, rather than out the anus and rectum,” Dr. Daniel Labow, chief of surgical oncology at Mount Sinai Health System, told SurvivorNet in a previous interview.

Colostomy sounds much worse than it is. “Once you get over the psychosocial effects, you can lead a totally normal life,” Dr. Labow says. “It’s not painful. It’s just getting used to a different way.”

The Spike in Colon Cancer Cases in Young Adults

The average age people are diagnosed with colon cancer is 68 for men and 72 for women, according to the American Cancer Society.

However, the National Cancer Institute reports that since the 1990s, colorectal cancer cases have been rising among adults younger than 50. Research published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians found that the proportion of cases in people younger than 55 “increased from 11% in 1995 to 20% in 2019.”

“We know rates are increasing in young people, but it’s alarming to see how rapidly the whole patient population is shifting younger, despite shrinking numbers in the overall population,” cancer epidemiologist and lead study author Rebecca Siegel said.

Researchers are still trying to determine why younger people are being diagnosed in more significant numbers. Some experts point to risk factors, which include obesity, physical inactivity, and smoking, as a possible explanation for the increase.

“We don’t know for sure why we are seeing earlier onset and death from colon cancer,” Dr. Yeo explained.

“It is likely a combination of factors, including diet and genetics as well as access to care and some environmental factors.”

WATCH: How Doctors Look for Polyps.

Most colon cancers can be prevented if people are regularly screened. The screening usually involves a colonoscopy, in which a long, thin tube attached to a camera is used to examine the colon and rectum. If no polyps are discovered, the following screening won’t be needed for ten years.

“We know that colon cancers can be prevented when polyps are found early,” Dr. Yeo told SurvivorNet. “Lowering the screening age helps somewhat with this, but access to care is a real problem,” Yeo added.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) lowered the recommended initial age for a colorectal screening from 50 to 45 in 2021.

The American Cancer Society had recommended the same change in 2018. Since then, the American Gastroenterological Association and the U.S. Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer have also supported lowering the recommended starting age.

Pushing For A Correct Diagnosis

When it comes to your health, be a little pushy. You know your body better than anyone else. When you see a doctor for a problem, don’t hesitate to make sure that your question is fully answered and that you are comfortable with the plan moving forward. From a doctor’s perspective, every problem should have a diagnosis, a treatment, a plan for follow-up, and a plan for what happens next if the treatment doesn’t work.

As a patient, if you don’t feel like each of these four things has been accomplished, just ask! Even if it requires multiple visits or seeing additional providers for a second opinion, always be your own advocate.

The Importance of Being Your Own Advocate

Dr. Zuri Murrell, director of the Cedars-Sinai Colorectal Cancer Center, previously told SurvivorNet that healthcare guidelines are meant to do the right thing for the largest number of people while using the fewest resources.

“The truth is you have to be in tune with your body, and you realize that you are not the statistic,” he said.

Dr. Murrell told SurvivorNet that not every patient will “fit into the mold,” so it’s important to educate yourself and be your own health care advocate.

“Every appointment you leave as a patient, there should be a plan for what the doc is going to do for you, and if that doesn’t work, what the next plan is,” Dr. Murrell advised. “And I think that that’s totally fair. And me as a health professional that’s what I do for all of my patients.”

Questions To Ask Your Doctor

If you have a cancer screening coming up or have recently had one, you may have questions you want answered. SurvivorNet’s proprietary AI tool “My Health Questions” is designed specifically for patients and caregivers.

WATCH: How One Cancer Survivor and Her Sister Used “My Health Questions” to Navigate Care

This powerful resource is embedded across the SurvivorNet website and delivers structured responses grounded in clinical guidelines and medically reviewed research to help people better understand their treatment options and feel more confident navigating care.

My Health Questions can also help patients come up with useful questions ahead of their next appointment.

‘Adversity and the Art of Happiness,’ How Hardship Makes You Stronger

Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

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