At first, Paul Glusman thought his hernia had re-opened. Doctors who assessed the growing lump in the lawyer’s abdomen had other ideas, none of them dire. Even so, they spent months hunting for a diagnosis.
While they hunted, the lump grew. Once Glusman’s doctors decided it must be an infected lymph node, it was surgically removed. This finally led to an unexpected diagnosis: Merkel cell carcinoma, or MCC, a rare and aggressive type of skin cancer.
After a second surgery, Glusman’s cancer returned and metastases were eventually discovered in his bones. It was advanced. Stage 4.
