Arlen Specter in Favor of His Reformed Health

Senator Arlen Specter has written a book, due out next week, about his recent bout with Hodgkin's disease. next week. "Never Give In: Battling Cancer - and Politicians - in the Senate" follows Specter's autobiography, "Passion for Truth," published in 2000.

These books cover Specter's near extinction from the political arena over the past few decades, and from the world in the past few years. He gets beat around more than the Washington Senators used to before they faced extinction from Major League Baseball.

Healthwise, he's been misdiagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease (1979), had two brain tumor operations (1993, 1996) and a near-death experience after complications from a quadruple bypass operation (1998). But his gravest challenge was the 2005 diagnosis of late-stage Hodgkins disease (cancer of the lymph system) at age 75.

How did Specter get through it all?

Specter's solution for the debilitating effects of chemotherapy was simple: "Work, work, work." He plowed straight ahead as chairman of the Judiciary Committee on contentious issues like judicial nominations that nearly ground the Senate to a halt.

"In a sense, the tougher the day, the better I liked it," Specter writes in the book. "It kept my mind off me."

Now that Specter's cancer is in remission, he's urging other people facing illness to find strength beyond their suffering. Or, as we choose to call it, an Introspecter Look.

[Philadelphia Daily News]