PODIATRIST'S DIAGNOSIS OF MELANOMA SAVES LIFE OF BILLIONAIRES WIFE
posted: Oct. 22, 2019.
When Debra Black noticed a growth on the bottom of her foot, she quickly showed it to her dermatologist. Black, wife of private equity billionaire Leon Black, had had the earliest form of skin cancer seven years before, so she diligently went for screenings every few months. Her doctor, one of New York City’s top-rated dermatologists, told her not to worry, that it was just a plantar wart. He froze it off. It came back. He cut it off. It came back. It hurt and eventually bled. For four years, her doctor insisted it was nothing.
Black wasn’t convinced. In early 2007, she went to a friend’s podiatrist, who ordered a 3-D sonogram. It turned out that she had stage II melanoma. Had she waited much longer, she might have died. After two skin grafts, six weeks of keeping her foot elevated above her pelvis for 23 hours a day, and four months of using a walker and wheelchair, she was cancer-free.
Source: Luisa Kroll, Forbes Life
Courtesy of Barry Block, editor of PM News.