Uncle Floyd diagnosed with COVID by police and it reveals 2 types of cancer

A not-so-funny thing happened to Uncle Floyd at a traffic stop.

"I was dead set against talking about this," says legendary comic Floyd Vivino. "It was wrong of me to talk about this subject because of all the people that suffered its consequences. I feel very lucky, but Steve, you have been asking me for months to do this and you said to me, 'Floyd, if you help one person with this story we have done a good service.' You're the only one I would talk to about this."

I have been asking him to tell it so here's Uncle Floyd Vivino on my NJ 101.5 show, you can listen On-Demand starting at 1:30:30

"I left Bound Brook, I made a wrong turn, cops are following me. They pulled me over three times. The first two times I pass all the physical tests they said he's not drunk but there's something definitely wrong with this guy and they followed me. They brought ambulances to these three stops."

Floyd continues: "The third cop says to me "You have COVID" and I said "No I don't," he says "Yes you do."

"Now how he'd known, I could not get out of my car," says Floyd. "COVID, if anybody's had it, and I was in the hospital for two weeks with it, either goes to your lungs, your kidneys, your heart, or your brain. With me, it was going to the brain, which shuts down the muscles in your body, so I couldn't get out of the car."

"I had to lift up one leg with both hands and put it out the door, then I had to lift up laboriously this other leg and put it down on the floor," Floyd said.

"To get out of the car, I had to do like a pullup. I had to put my two hands outside the car and the window and pull myself up."

"The cop knew," says Floyd. "He says, 'Listen, my job is to protect you, but my job is also to protect all the other motorists I'm not going to let you go any further. There's something wrong.'"

"To make a long story short, he (the cop) was right. I was about 8 miles from the Pennsylvania border. He said, 'Where are you going?' I said Totowa, New Jersey. He said you're going the wrong way."

They wanted to bring Floyd to a hospital but he said, "If I'm going to die tonight, it's going to be in Totowa, New Jersey with my people, not in Pennsylvania in a hospital"

"They wouldn't let me drive any further. They made me call AAA to drive me home, some guy with a truck showed up, but before he got there I'm walking away and the cops asked, 'Where are you going?' I said c'mon, I'll buy you guys coffee and doughnuts at the rest stop coffee shop. The cop said no you're not and those cops stayed with me until the AAA guy showed up."

"Those cops," says Floyd, "I wish I could hug them, I'd hug them with all my heart. I tried to find out who they were but when you have COVID going to the brain you have a memory loss for a period of time. I was warned about this and for two months I couldn't remember anything."

Those cops saved Uncle Floyd's life.

"I would have been dead in another 8-10 hours. When the brain stops it's over." But instead, it was just the beginning of another finding.

"When I was in the hospital, I never took medicine in my life, I never took even an aspirin," says Floyd. "At age 70 I took my first pill and I asked the doctor, 'Why am I taking this medicine?' He says, 'You have two cancers in you."

"I got it in the bladder and in the prostate," says Floyd. "The two most common places for men"

The doctor says the cancers are at very low levels and if Floyd chose to do nothing he might have three good years but then cancer maybe at 75 or 76 would take over.  The doctor gave Floyd the choice of fighting it now or waiting to ask him how long he wants to live. Floyd's response: "I want to work until I'm 86."

Thankfully Floyd found out early enough to take action. When I asked him if he is going to fight it, his response: "I'm going to knock the hell out of them."

See Uncle Floyd with Julia Scotti and me Saturday, April 16 at the Brook Art Theatre. For tickets click here.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise only. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.

You can now listen to Steve Trevelise — On Demand! Discover more about New Jersey’s personalities and what makes the Garden State interesting . Download the Steve Trevelise show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now: