After six decades in broadcasting, Larry King has beaten almost everything. And let’s hope he’ll do the same with his latest battle: lung cancer. Turns out, he 83-year-old received the diagnosis during a routine visit with his doctor this summer. Docs apparently discovered a “funny looking spot” on his lung that turned out to be malignant.
The good news? It was caught early. The surgery he had to remove it on July 17th took about 20% of his lung and his doctor told him, “If it had stayed and we didn’t find it, you would have had trouble in two or three years, but we got it and you were lucky.” He even returned to work two weeks later.
Now Larry – who hasn’t had a cigarette since his heart attack in the late ‘80s – wants to use his experience to educate others. “When you are [getting] a checkup, get a chest X-ray because lung cancer ain’t going to tell you it’s there, but a simple chest X-ray will,” he explains. “If it shows you one little spot, you will do a CAT scan. They are all painless.”
Source: Us Weekly