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NBA’s great Abdul-Jabbar has rare blood cancer
by Kangna Agarwal - November 11, 2009 - comments
The 62-year-old basketball legend Abdul Jabbar was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia last December. He went for tests after experiencing odd sensations like hot flashes and night sweats.
New York, November 11 -- The NBA's all-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar revealed Tuesday that he is battling with a rare form of blood cancer called chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). However, he insisted that his prognosis is encouraging.
The Lakers Assistant coach has been living with the disease since a year but despite admitting he was scared he said he is hopeful of living a full life without making any drastic changes.
"There is hope," he added. "This condition can be treated. You can still live a productive, full life. I'm living proof I can make it."
Jabbar said he is taking oral medication to counter the disease and will have to undergo frequent blood tests and see a specialist every other month.
Jabbar’s diagnosis
The 62-year-old basketball legend was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia last December. He decided to go for tests after experiencing odd sensations like hot flashes and night sweats.
"I had noticed I was having hot flashes and sweats," he said. "I'm not going through menopause. So I really needed to know what that's about. The next day they called and said, 'You need to go see a specialist. Your white blood cell count is sky high."
How his diagnosis became public?
For Jabbar, going public with leukemia diagnosis was a private battle. Even some of the Lakers officials did not know about his diagnosis until Tuesday.
"I've never been a person to share my private life, but I can help save lives," he said. "It's incumbent on someone like me to talk about this."
The other reason that took him so long to announce his disease is that cancer has been very prominent in his life.
"My grandfather died from colorectal cancer, my uncle died from colorectal cancer and my father almost died from colorectal cancer," he said.
He has also lost one of his close friends, actor Bruno Kirby to leukemia in 2006.
However, late last week, he decided to go public with his disease because he wanted to draw people’s attention towards the same.
He is now a spokesman for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., which partners with the CML Alliance and is doing an educational campaign to spread awareness about the disease.
Jabbar’s career
Famed for his skyhook shot, Abdul Jabbar has had a glittering career of 20 years from 1969 to 1989 with the Milwaukee Bucks and the Lakers.
He scored the highest points total of any player in league history (38,387), in addition to winning a record six Most Valuable Player Awards and six NBA championships.
Since retiring from basketball, he has been known as an author, coach and actor.