Posted on 01/27/2007 4:43:33 AM PST by Ninian Dryhope
AUSTIN - Nationally syndicated columnist Molly Ivins has been hospitalized in her recurring battle with breast cancer.
"I think she's tough as a metal boot," her brother, Andy Ivins, said Friday after a visit with her at Seton Medical Center in Austin.
Andy Ivins said his sister was admitted to Seton on Thursday. She spent Friday morning with longtime colleagues and friends, and was "sleeping peacefully" when he arrived later in the day.
A self-described leftist agitator, Ivins, 62, completed a round of radiation treatment in August, but the cancer "came back with a vengeance," and has spread through her body, Andy Ivins said.
Ivins' columns, which she infuses with passion and wit, appear in more than 300 newspapers around the country. She's written six books, four of which were best sellers.
They included Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, which she wrote with longtime friend Lou Dubose; and Who Let the Dogs In? Incredible Political Animals I Have Known.
Ivins was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. A year later, she described her treatment with characteristic wit: "First they poison you; then they mutilate you; then they burn you. I've had more fun."
She received her third diagnosis a year ago; despite her illness, she's managed to crank out her columns.
In a piece earlier this month, she wrote that she was starting a newspaper crusade to end the war in Iraq.
"Raise hell," she urged readers. "Think of something ridiculous to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. ... We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!' "
As a person that believes in Karma. I wish her the best.
"Fundamentalist Christian missionaries are now salivating over the prospect of going to Iraq to convert the hapless heathen. This is guaranteed to make America as popular as the clap in the region. The Southern Baptists are poised to deploy en masse, reminding us of Texas newspaperman William Brann's famous comment, 'The trouble with our Texas Baptists is that we do not hold them under water long enough.' "Mild writing for Molly. She often quoted Brann, whom she openly admired and spoke well of. If you don't have a strong stomach, don't ever read what he thought should be done with blacks, Christians, conservatives etc.
Everybody should, but through God's grace, some of us don't.
You did say in this one case, and I apologize and recognize that she deserves this fate because of her politics (rolling eyes).
Amen. At this moment, politics is a child's game which she should stop playing. The Lord will not ask us which political cause we supported.
It makes you wonder just who some of these people are, doesn't it?
Should be "infused with hatred and hostility." Everyone has to die of something, and "vengeful" cancer is a fitting end for a malignant hater.
Posters. It is the left which perfected sliming and the politics of personal destruction.
We on the right should not be doing the same. Wishing her evil is not fitting. We descend to the level of the left and are no better.
Nail on the head....
Cancer treatment is initially more devistating than the cancer.
Pray for her, lest your judgement be visited upon you.
The connection between malignant hatred and cancer has been noted by mind-body medicine for many years. Abundant exceptions of course, but the statistics are there.
Oh, you mean like post #87.
Not much question about it, if you ask me.
I recently had a cousin die of brain cancer within 4 months after diagnosis. She was only 49 and had been an oncology nurse for over 25 years. She was a wonderful person who helped many people with a strong faith and a tremendously positive and selfless spirit.
Do you really believe that Molly Ivins experienced breast cancer and her disease progressed over 6-7 years to the metastatic stage because she has an unhealthy soul resulting from an ultra-liberal political point of view? What's more likely is that she was a smoker during her lifetime or she has a genetic predisposition to breast cancer and her cancer is of a type that did not respond well to standard therapies.
As someone working in the field of oncology, let me tell you that cancer kills Republicans as well as Democrats, people of faith as well as those of little faith.
I do hope she is not suffering and that this time of difficulty gives her the opportunity to reflect on life and its meaning and perhaps have some insights she may not have had in the past.
Yes, like that.
She should move to Cuba. She will get free health care and a bed next to her buddy Fidel.
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