Mac McCorkle of Durham couldn't understand why he was feeling so rundown during meetings or after playing tennis in the fall of 2010. He had severe bouts of diarrhea, but thought they were a sign of irritable bowel syndrome.
“I was feeling incredibly tired and old and beat up,” said McCorkle, now 60, and a professor who runs the masters program at the Duke-Sanford School of Public Policy.
In early 2012, McCorkle went to see a gastroenterologist who spotted swelling in his neck. "I hadn't noticed anything but the doctor said, ‘do you have trouble tying a tie?’ He sent me to Dr. Esclamado." The next week McCorkle learned he had medullary thyroid cancer.