Re: Press release - Siegal's article in The Oncologist

[Guest guest]

Yes, This story hits home to many of us here. Yes, if we only had

been more aware of colon cancer in our background we could of been

more aware and tested earlier. Ingrid

> http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050804/clth062.html?.v=18

>

> *Press Release* Source: AlphaMed Press

>

> Fatherhood and Cancer: Film Critic Siegel Offers Thanks, and a

Warning

> Thursday August 4, 11:47 am ET

>

> DURHAM, N.C., Aug. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- For film and theater critic

> Siegel, the past seven years have been a living drama of joy and

anguish.

>

> It began with two firsts: the news in the summer of 1997 that his

wife,

> Ena, was pregnant; followed one week later by Siegel's colonoscopy

and

> the words " I don't have good news " spoken by his doctor.

>

> There ensued a battle for Siegel's life, including three surgeries,

> chemotherapy and radiation, bracketing the birth of his son, Dylan.

>

> Siegel, film critic for ABC-TV's Good Morning America since 1981

and for

> WABC-TV's Eyewitness News since 1976, describes his journey with

colon

> cancer and fatherhood in the upcoming issue of The Oncologist (as

> presented to C- Change, May 2005), where he thanks cancer

practitioners

> on behalf of Dylan, now seven.

>

> " I had a seventy percent chance of being alive to witness the

birth, " he

> writes of his earliest prognosis. The first surgery, in 1997,

followed

> by treatment that brought about extreme fatigue and other

debilitating

> effects, was just the beginning.

>

> As Dylan approached the age of two, a lesion was found on Siegel's

left

> lung. His colon cancer had metastasized. A few months after that

> surgery, cancer appeared on his right lung. Less than a year ago,

cancer

> was found in multiple sites of what remains of both lungs.

>

> Siegel warns readers not to delay colorectal cancer screening past

age

> 50. " If I had done one simple thing, " he writes, " all of this could

have

> been avoided. " A screening colonoscopy at 50 would most likely have

> revealed pre- cancerous polyps that could have been removed,

literally

> nipping his cancer in the bud.

>

> Siegel has chronicled his experiences in his book, Lessons for

Dylan: On

> Life, Love, the Movies, and Me (Public Affairs, New York, 2004).

>

> He is co-founder, with actor Gene Wilder, of Gilda's Club, a

nonprofit

> support facility for cancer patients named in memory of Gilda

Radner,

> who died of ovarian cancer.

>

> The Oncologist, in its tenth year, is an international peer-

reviewed

> journal from AlphaMed Press serving more than 21,000 physicians.

The

> Oncologist is devoted to medical and practice issues for surgical,

> radiation, and medical oncologists entrusted with the care of adult

or

> pediatric cancer patients.

>

> Text of featured article:

>

http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/cgi/content/full/10/7/558

>

> CONTACT:

> Laurel Ferejohn, Communications

> LaurelFerejohn@A...

> Tel.:

> Fax:

>

>

>

>