He had a family history of this disease:
Mr. Snow often said that he felt stalked all his adult life by the threat of colon cancer; his mother died of the disease when he was 17. By the time he joined the White House, he had already been treated for it; in 2005 he received a diagnosis of Stage 3 colon cancer, meaning the disease had spread to the lymph nodes but not to other organs. At that time, he underwent surgery to have his colon removed.
He is survived by a wife and three children.
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Renowned heart surgeon Michael DeBakey, 99, has died from more or less natural causes.
Many considered him the greatest surgeon ever.
More:
Medical statesman, chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine, and a surgeon at The Methodist Hospital since 1949, DeBakey trained thousands of surgeons over several generations, achieving legendary status decades before his death. During his career, he estimated he had performed more than 60,000 operations. His patients included the famous — Russian President Boris Yeltsin and movie actress Marlene Dietrich among them — and the uncelebrated.
"Dr. DeBakey singlehandedly raised the standard of medical care, teaching and research around the world," said Dr. George Noon, a cardiovascular surgeon and longtime partner of DeBakey's. "He was the greatest surgeon of the 20th century, and physicians everywhere are indebted to him for his contributions to medicine."
Debakey almost died in 2006, when he suffered an aortic aneurysm, a condition for which he pioneered the treatment. He is considered the oldest patient to have both undergone and survived surgery for it. He recovered well enough to go to Washington earlier this year to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation's two highest civilian honors.
He remained vigorous and was a player in medicine well into his 90s, performing surgeries, traveling and publishing articles in scientific journals. His large hands were steady, his hearing sharp. His personal health regimen included taking the stairs at work and a single cup of coffee in the morning.
It sounds like he came from a long-lived family, unless, of course, he was one of these people who had much younger brothers and sisters. Surviving him, besides his wife and three of his five children, are two sisters. A brother died just two years ago.
DeBakey was also known for his famous feud with Dr. Denton Cooley, now 87, a feud reminiscent of that between Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. Their beef was over the development of the artificial heart. But, as they say, whoever "they" are, the two buried the hatchet last year.
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