New questions about McCain's melanoma

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/24/MNU210SLMJ.DTL&type=health

But buried in 1,173 pages of medical records that McCain's campaign released before the conference call was something not previously made public: Two pathologists at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology who examined the melanoma specimen from McCain's left temple in 2000 suggested there were two melanomas on his temple, not one, as his doctors had said publicly at the time.

McCain's campaign and doctors did not respond Friday to a request for clarification of the Armed Forces pathology report and the classification of the melanoma. But two experts in the field who reviewed the report said it was unclear whether the melanoma on McCain's temple had metastasized from another, or whether there was one new primary melanoma.

If the spread was through the nearby melanoma, then there is greater risk to McCain than the public has been led to believe, said Dr. Lynn Schuchter, a melanoma expert at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Mohammed Kashani-Sabet, director of the Melanoma Center at UC San Francisco.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Don't you wish

you could get your aberrant tissue biopsied at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology?

They've hemmed and hawed and obfuscated with these medical "records" for so long, I'm doubtful that anything in them actually conveys a clear and accurate picture of McCain's physical health. Having lost a good friend to melanoma, and having another good friend who's a dermatologist, I know what a deadly disease it is, the absolute worst kind of cancer to have.

It's called the "stealth cancer" because it tends to go inward, sometimes for years and years, where it silently does its dirty work, and then BAM! it erupts out of the body. My good friend had undergone surgery, just like McCain's, with removal of the sentinel node, just like McCain's, followed by extensive radiation and chemotherapy. It looked good, he was feeling better and better. All his checkups declared him cancer-free, the perfect remission.

One Saturday, seven years after his initial diagnosis, he went for a ten-mile hike with his daughter.

The next Saturday, he died.

[NCDem60]

2. I don't mean this to be flippant but

if I had to die of cancer that is the way I would like to go.


"One Saturday, seven years after his initial diagnosis, he went for a ten-mile hike with his daughter.

The next Saturday, he died."

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. You're not flippant,

and I'd never think you were.

But, you don't know what that week was like. No one should have to suffer the way he suffered. Melanoma is vicious.