Posted on 04/11/2007 6:27:06 AM PDT by tsmith130
Damn! Will be on Fox today with Neil Cavuto.
Posted by Fred Thompson at RedState:
What You Need To Know
Facts About My Cancer
By Fred Thompson
We have all seen the courageous battle that Elizabeth and John Edwards are fighting, and there are so many others. Fortunately, there are an increasing number of good stories because of the medical advances that have been made. I have friends in politics, some in Congress, some running for President, and others who have successfully dealt with cancer. It is certainly no respecter of persons and totally non-partisan. That point was driven home to me about 2 1/2 years ago when, shortly after a routine physical, I was diagnosed with what the doctors call an indolent lymphoma. Of the 30-plus kinds of lymphoma this is a “good” kind, if there is such a thing.
I have had no illness from it, or even any symptoms. My life expectancy should not be affected. I am in remission, and it is very treatable with drugs if treatment is needed in the future—and with no debilitating side effects.
I am one of the lucky ones. There are many lucky ones today. And for all of our diversity, we share one thing in common—a deep appreciation for the fact that we live in the United States of America and have the best medicine and the best doctors the world has even known.
I’m trying to post a comment there, seems the site is BOGGED DOWN with all his supporters posting their encouragement!
You must be joking. No one who has been here more than a year could possibly be that naive.
I see lots of knee jerk reaction. IIRC, this is the least aggressive form of lymphoma and not necessarily life threatening. It can be, and in his case, IS, controlled.
Same with Rudy’s prostate cancer. I was diagnosed w/ Prostate cancer 9 years ago and my Oncologist, just last month, declared me to be cancer free!
Ms. Edwards is in far greater danger thatn either.
Father God, I ask that Your healing touch surround our friend Fred Thompson and make him well and whole. I ask that You be with Fred’s family during this time and to keep them well and hopeful. I ask this things Father in Jesus’ precious name, Amen.
He’s running!!!
WOOT!
Where’s Mah “Fred For President Sticker”????
Us too Ul. I think this is a GREAT sign that he will be. Thankfully for us and our country!
A very encouraging video from a survivour here. Full of wonderfule information and facts. I encourage all to watch it.
“WHY, if he isn’t running, would he bring out this unknown fact til this morning, UNLESS he’s getting ahead of the press prior to announcing a run?
He’s running.”
He is floating ‘trial (no pun intended) balloons!’ Testing the waters, as it were.
YES HE IS!!!!!AMEN!!!!!!
I suspect that if someone delved into the “median 10 year survival” statistic, it could well be very dependent on whether the victim discovered this by some acute “sickness” or by a more routine “checkup”. There certainly many “good lymphoma” survivors apparently going to die of something other than the very treatable cancer they have. I know some of them. On the other hand, there are some who don’t survive long.
I suspect that those who die from this had a real bad and pervasive case before they ever found out about it, and they skew the statistics to the short end, but the fact that we don’t live forever cuts down even the longest lived survivor ... so that caps the high end to something less than “median 80 years survival” for certain.
If he wanted to use it as an excuse not to run, he would use it on the day he announced he was not running.
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Perfect analysis in your post. Agreed, and it was my first thought... time to listen to Rush.
Prayers for Thompson and his family.
I read the interview on Fox and there were a lot of things in there that sounded positive. The bottom of the interview said that candidates often will put out information on their health if they are considering a run. It looks like he is headed for declaring his candidacy, so that is a good thing. I am encouraged by all of this. He doesn’t sound concerned by all this, he said he was free of symptoms for three years. The interview sounded like it was something benign. [Unless I missed something along the way.]
FoxNews broke this story. Not someone like Drudge or the NYSlimes or ABCNNBCpBS
Other news outlets are more and more being forced to acknowledge the pertinency of FoxNews now. I think it this will start to snowball now, and eventually that will be "primacy" - despite sKedwards-Moveon(lol) attempts to derail that eventuality.
I don’t think they will EVER give Fox the credit they deserve, same way they never give credit to our President. I truly believe these people suffer from some sort of mental disease.
Fred Thompson bump!
An amazing story—Wow!
Good luck and prayers of healing and strength to FRed T and family. He looks and sounds fine to me.
Saw earlier on the thread that 71,000 folks a year are diagnosed with lymphoma, damn.
I’m looking forward to his face at the debates. ;-)
Here’s Nedra’s article from AP off of Yahooooie
Fred Thompson says he has cancer
NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070411/ap_on_go_co/thompson_cancer
WASHINGTON - Fred Thompson, the potential presidential candidate better known as television’s gruff “Law & Order” district attorney, said Wednesday he was diagnosed with lymphoma more than two years ago but the cancer shouldn’t affect his life expectancy.
In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto, the former Tennessee senator, 64, said a doctor conducting a physical in 2004 found a bump on his neck, which turned out to be non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He said the disease is in remission with no illness or symptoms, and it won’t affect his decision about whether to seek the Republican nomination.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t satisfied in my own mind as to the nature of it and the fact that not only will I have an average lifespan but in the meantime I will not be affected in anyway by it,” Thompson said. “Now of course nobody knows the future but that has been in the history for almost three years now in terms of no symptoms and no sickness.”’
Thompson’s physician, Dr. Bruce Cheson, hematology chief at Georgetown University Hospital, said the prognosis is good.
“Some lymphomas are very aggressive, but people with slow-growing types, like Senator Thompson’s, more often die from natural causes associated with old age, rather than from the disease,” Cheson said in a statement.
Thompson’s disclosure comes just weeks after Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, revealed that her cancer had returned. White House spokesman Tony Snow recently underwent surgery for cancer that had spread to his liver.
Cancer has touched past and present presidential candidates. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) carries scars after three episodes of melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer. His 2008 Republican rival, Rudy Giuliani, had prostate cancer, which also afflicted 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry and 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole.
In 1992, Democratic primary candidate Paul Tsongas was the first presidential candidate to run as a cancer survivor, having undergone a radical bone-marrow transplant six years earlier after lymphoma forced an end to his Senate career. Tsongas later died from a complication related to the treatment for the disease’s recurrence.
“I have friends in politics, some in Congress, some running for president, and others who have successfully dealt with cancer,” Thompson told interviewer Cavuto, who has battled Hodgkin’s disease in the past and has multiple sclerosis. “It is certainly no respecter of persons and totally nonpartisan.”
Lymphoma is an immune-system cancer that strikes more than 71,000 Americans a year, and kills more than 19,000 of them. The vast majority have the non-Hodgkin’s form of lymphoma, a term that encompasses more than 30 different subtypes of the disease.
Some of these subtypes are termed “indolent,” meaning they typically respond well to treatment — patients often go into remission for long periods, but the disease is not cured and may need to be battled back again periodically.
Survival varies widely, depending on the subtype of lymphoma. But overall, five-year survival for the non-Hodgkin’s group of lymphomas is 63 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.
Thompson’s doctor said he has a subtype known as “marginal zone lymphoma” and was treated with a drug called Rituxan, a monoclonal antibody which zeros in on cancer cells to specifically target them. But Cheson confirmed that Thompson is in remission with no signs of the cancer detectable by medical tests.
The former senator is an actor who has played many roles, including president of the United States, director of the CIA, an admiral and currently, district attorney Arthur Branch on NBC’s long-running drama “Law & Order.”
Thompson has said he would consider running for president in 2008, depending on how the rest of the Republican field shakes out.
“I’m just going to wait and see what happens,” Thompson told Fox last month. “I wanted to see how my colleagues who are on the campaign trail do now, what they say, what they emphasize, what they’re addressing, and how successful they are in doing that, and whether or not they can carry the ball in next November.”
Thompson’s rise to prominence began three decades ago, when he served as minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee. He famously asked one the key questions of the proceedings: “Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President?”
That led to the disclosure of the Watergate tapes.
Starting in the late 1980s, Thompson got roles in numerous movies, including “No Way Out,” “The Hunt for Red October,” “Cape Fear and “In the Line of Fire.”
Thompson was elected to the Senate in 1994 to fill the seat of Al Gore, who had been elected vice president. He won re-election to the Senate easily in 1996, but his daughter died of a heart attack during that term and he announced a couple months later that he wouldn’t seek re-election.
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