Letter: Cancer-beaters right here in LV

Friday, July 23, 1999 | 10:38 a.m.

Just why screenwriters, myself included, always selected that particular location is a mystery other than perhaps because it seemed so far away.

Well, I'm here to tell you, not as a writer but as a resident of Las Vegas, that the greatest medical specialists of our time live and work in our town. The fact that I am alive to relate this fact to you is the best proof I can offer.

I have just come through 10 months of a fight with throat cancer, and without these men, you wouldn't be reading this letter for the simple reason that I wouldn't be here to write it. I didn't beat the big "C," they did.

This has been my one and only bout with cancer, and I hope it will remain that way, but to these dedicated people, it's their everyday activity.

Las Vegas is famous for odds, most of which can't be beaten. In the case of medicine, with early detection, these odds can be beaten.

Cancer is a coward. It sneaks up on you and strikes from nowhere. And just like any coward, it cannot stand up to a good fight.

My team of doctors (and their assistants, nurses, etc.) provide the ammunition for that kind of fight and I didn't have to fly to Switzerland to find them.

PETER COLLINS