Cancer Surgery

CLEVELAND -- Eric Davis' courageous comeback from cancer surgery has made him a crowd favorite at more than Camden Yards. The fans here at Jacobs Field also have embraced the Orioles' right fielder."

James L. Day,73, a retired Marine Corps general who earned the Medal of Honor for holding his ground on Sugar Loaf Hill in Okinawa during World War II, died Wednesday of a heart attack in Cathedral City, Calif.He received the Medal of Honor from President Clinton on Jan. 20, more than a half-century after he was recommended for the honor for his role in the May 1945 battle for Sugar Loaf Hill on the Japanese island.Samuel Blum,70, a writer and a former editor in chief of the Doubleday Book Club, died of leukemia on Oct. 22 at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

To the letter writer who stated that she would not recycle because her container was stolen ("Single-stream recycling isn't for us," Feb. 21) please reconsider. I just had cancer surgery and will be in radiation/chemo treatment, so I know I may miss a week of putting out paper and cans. But with single-stream recycling, I will not be inundated with stuff like under the old program. Jerks exist everywhere in the world, even Baltimore County. Please go to a grocery or liquor store for cardboard boxes and use them for recycling.

An estimated 30,000 men who have had prostate cancer surgery will relapse this year, and half of them will die. But many of those patients can be saved, a new study says, if doctors treat them with radiation therapy at the earliest signs of recurrence. In cases where prostate cancer appears to be returning after surgery, doctors usually forgo using local radiation treatment altogether because they assume the disease has spread. Hormones, which are helpful but cannot cure the disease, are typically given instead.

For 31 years, Claire LeCompte was ashamed to talk about the pouch beneath her clothes, the remnant of cancer surgery that saved her life.But 20 years ago today, she became a charter member of the Anne Arundel County Maryland Ostomy Association and has been convincing others that there is life after the surgery that leaves patients with an abdominal opening that allows them to urinate or defecate."

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been receiving chemotherapy and radiation as a follow-up to surgery last fall for colon cancer, her office disclosed yesterday. She said the treatments began in October and will continue through June, and are "precautionary" and "have not affected my schedule at the court." The 66-year-old justice has been on the bench each day during the court's current term, which began in early October. She also has continued with public appearances outside the Supreme Court.

When Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras teamed up for a live concert in Rome in July 1990, it set the classical music world on its ear. From that performance by the three greatest living tenors there came a recording that has sold 7 million copies and is still selling.When Laurindo Almeida, Carlos Barbosa-Lima and Charlie Byrd combine for a guitar concert titled "The Brazilian Masters" at Johns Hopkins' Shriver Hall Saturday night, the occasion may not be quite so glamorous as the show in Rome, but it is nevertheless an event of importance in the six-string universe.

For 31 years, Claire LeCompte was ashamed to talk about the pouch beneath her clothes, the remnant of cancer surgery that saved her life.But 20 years ago today, she became a charter member of the Anne Arundel County Maryland Ostomy Association and has been convincing others that there is life after the surgery that leaves patients with an abdominal opening that allows them to urinate or defecate."

Nancy Jean Petrarca, a medical technician and real estate saleswoman, died of colon cancer Saturday at her Cockeysville home. She was 50. Born in Baltimore and raised in Glen Burnie, she was a 1973 Glen Burnie High School graduate and cheerleading captain. She then completed three years of course work toward a science degree at Towson University. She was a medical technician at the old South Baltimore General and Maryland General hospitals and Central Laboratories in Timonium. She was later a medical labs marketing representative.

Evelyn G. Calhoun, a retired Baltimore County educator and world traveler who was also a thoroughbred racing fan, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at her Parkton home. She was 89. Evelyn Gertrude Dennis, the daughter of a steelworker and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in the 700 block of N. Port St. She was 16 when she graduated from Patterson High School in 1939. During World War II, she worked as a civilian stenographer for the Army at Fort Sill, Okla.