Even though 60,000 people are newly diagnosed each year, the disease is rarely mentioned in the news despite the fact that some very famous people have died from the disease. Jackie Onassis died from NHL as did King Hussein of Jordan. Baseball great Roger Maris, aviator Charles Lindbergh, cartoonist Jeff MacNelly (?Shoe?), and director Louis Malle all died from lymphoma. Mickey Mantle, Jr. succumbed to the disease a few months after his famous father died. Gene Wilder, who lost his wife, Gilda Radner, to ovarian cancer, has been treated for lymphoma, as have Mr. T of ?The A-Team? and Paul Allen of Microsoft (Hodgkin's).

Arte Johnson of ?Laugh-In? was treated for lymphoma. Ironically, the same disease took the life of Dan Rowan, also from ?Laugh-In.? The list goes on and on.

Lymphoma is really a silent disease, and I think it's because so many with the disease don't talk about it.

I've tried to think of a reason and the only one I came up with is that the cancer for many of us is not debilitating so we don't act or appear sick. If we don't appear sick, then we aren't being asked a lot of questions.

Another thing I've noticed since doing this blog is that lymphoma people appear to be interested only in the blogs that talk about specifics about the disease or things that can help in fighting the disease. Again, I'm basing this on the responses to the blogs. Clearly, people aren't interested in hearing about anything personal, like vacations or things to do for relaxation, which makes it hard to write several blogs a week.

Lymphoma people are like Sgt. Joe Friday of ?Dragnet? - ?Just give us the facts, ma'am.?