Is McCain Dying Of Cancer?

[kpete]

Run time: 00:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AeUrJ9MlGs   Posted on YouTube: September 16, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 16, 2008 By DU Member: kpete Views on DU: 2060

 
I just got back from a dermatologist for a check-up (growing up in Miami with outdoor summers requires this), and I asked her about McCain and skin cancer. He's had various types of the disease and I wanted to get a sense of whether he's really in danger or if this is one of those treatable forms of cancer. And she told me that basically, some skin cancers are not that bad, but malignant melanoma - the kind McCain has had in two separate places - is not one of those. It's bad. Real bad. And unlike most cancers, it doesn't really go away, even after years in remission. Sam Donaldson had it on his ankle, and thirteen years later it returned in the same spot. McCain has had it on two separate 'primaries' (not recurrences, which aren't as bad), and you can clearly see the post-surgical scars of having his lymph nodes checked (and partially removed). This is not a healthy guy, this is a 72 year old man with a fairly high likelihood of serious illness and death within the next few years.

I asked Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican, about John McCain's cancer, and he said that McCain is in remission. The video is above. You can see above that Kyl is taken aback, but he says that he trusts what John McCain told him. But why? That might be good enough for a Republican Senator, but why should that be the test for the voters? Why should we trust McCain on his medical past? It's not just that McCain has stretched the truth in this campaign, as even Karl Rove noted, or that he's acted as desperately as you'd expect a dying man to act when stretching for his lifelong dream of the Presidency, it's that McCain has simply refused to release his medical records to the public and confined select members of the press to a three hour window with no electronic equipment to examine his records. Brave New Films is on this question, and more than a thousand doctors have signed up to ask him to release his medical records. You should sign this petition and watch the video, it is downright scary. While this race is between Obama and McCain, President Palin is not an unlikely outcome (as Matt Damon noted).

more at:
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=9FC6E63F96A8E5ECDC20BC7EBB93FE19?diaryId=8274

[Not Me]

1. Fair question in light of the fact that he will not release

his medical records.

[CoffeeCat]

2. I have always wondered...

about John McCain's face.

I don't mean to be intrusive or appear insensitive, but on the left side of his face--toward the bottom of his
cheek, is a very large, puffy bump.

I never wanted to start a thread about it, because I felt bad about asking the question.

Maybe there's a simple explanation or maybe it's scar tissue from a surgery.

However, it's very pronounced and it doesn't look good. It looks like something that's not
supposed to be there.

Does anyone know what this is?

[Virginia Dare]

3. This is a critical issue, President Palin scares the living crap out of me...n/t

[mb7588a]

4. I just had a pre-cancerous chunk of my ear lobe removed.

Someone that has had or is susceptible to skin cancer checks one's self every day for even the slightest change. All it takes is ONE single microscopic cancerous cell left behind from the surgeries to spread. If any of those skin cells remain, there is no such thing as remission. Nor is there EVER a guarantee that melanoma cells are gone.

I'm 25. It's serious for me and I never even had melanoma. McCain is nearly thrice my age and has had the disease at 10 times worse than me. I can't imagine. Impossible for this to be a healthy man. I remember seeing him quite often around the Hill without the makeup and up close. That was 2004 to this August. He looks terribly ill in person.

[marias23]

5. Life Expectancy for Melanoma for a 72 year old man

One in four

[sop]

6. Perhaps McCain just wants a memorial, not the actual presidency

Knowing McCain's obssession with his own image, and how hard he's worked to cultivate it over the years, perhaps he just wants to be elected president and not actually govern. Watching McCain, I get the impression he is not all that interested in actually being POTUS so he can govern for four/eight years. It seems like he would be satisfied simply attaining the office thinking it would be a fitting memorial to "the old maverick, POW". I can see the tributes now....like Lincoln and kennedy he gave his life to his beloved country while serving as president.

[SuckItTrebeck]

7. Dying, no... will die, yes.

He's going to keep getting Melanomas. That's just the way it goes with that type of cancer.

One time it's going to show up somewhere new. Like his brain.

Then it's Prez. Palin.

God help us all.

[Tutankhamun]

8. He's definitely hiding something.

And medical records are definitely a big deal for a presidential candidate. How many times lately have we said, "Imagine if the tables were turned and it were Obama (fill in appropriate deception/scandal/obstruction)?

I'm starting to think Obama should do what McCain does. For example, if Obama refused the public access to his medical records there would have been an immediate media uproar. He could have then said, "I'll release my records when McCain does the same."

Why not add a fake reverse to the playbook? Fake the media into doing their job, then reverse the field.

[jpertello]

9. Speaking from personal experience

I watched my very wonderful sister die of this horrible disease 2 years ago. I know what stages of Melanoma my sister was in when various things were happening. At the stage that the tumors left the primary in situ and traveled to distant spots or the opposite side of the body this was evidence that the cancer had entered the lymphatic system and was now freely traveling throughout the body via the lymphatic system. (see: http://www.melanomacenter.org/staging/stage3.html ) The fact that Sen. McCain has had the lymph nodes in the left side of his face removed (the "chipmunk cheeks" are due to lymphedema)and that a tumor then showed up on the RIGHT side of his face points to his being in a more advanced stage of the disease than he admits.
Not all Melanomas are the same. My sister had first occurance on her toe. Since this is a small area close to the bone it had probably already entered her bone by the time she even had it checked.

Sen. McCain's Melanoma in my estimation (and I am no doctor) is probably in Stage III by now. This gives him a very grim prognosis for getting through even the first 2 years of a presidency, never mind 4. If you want to read more:

http://www.bcm.edu/oto/grand/3493.html

And if you really want to do something wonderful, then please donate something to the Melanoma Research Foundation so more great people like my sister don't need to suffer and die from this horrible disease.

http://www.melanoma.org/