Stomach Cancer

Celebrities are a weird lot. They strive to be famous, but once they achieve fame they strive to distance themselves from the public. They want to be known and unknown at the same time. Fred Rogers, who died Thursday from stomach cancer, was different. His genius, both on and off TV, was intimacy. When he asked to be your neighbor, he meant it. He wanted to get to know you, to become close to you. I became Mister Rogers' neighbor in the summer of 2001. He was in Philadelphia to discuss book projects with a publisher.

House Speaker Matthew Ryan, the senior member of the state House of Representatives, is being treated for stomach cancer. In a letter to his colleagues yesterday, Ryan, a Republican from Delaware County, said he would undergo surgery to remove a small malignant tumor that doctors recently found in his stomach. "I hope to be able to finish the June session before hospitalization but cannot say for sure at this point," said Ryan, who recently turned 70. Ryan entered Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland on Monday after experiencing internal bleeding.

Montreal Canadiens captain Saku Koivu said yesterday that the stomach cancer that has sidelined him this season was in full remission. Koivu, 27, said he planned to start working out and could return by the end of the regular season in April, if he can maintain a schedule of six workouts a week. "The way the guys are playing right now, I'll have to ask coach [Michel Therrien] if I can even make the team," Koivu joked. Team doctor David Mulder said it was unlikely Koivu could play this season, but added "nothing's impossible" and noted that Koivu had so far "proved us wrong in every case" with his recovery.

Every shot, pass and play still has purpose for Holy Spirit senior point guard Jen Daniels. But her thoughts recently have been more on her grandfather than on her game. Last week, the 17-year-old player learned that her grandfather, John Daniels, 81, has stomach cancer. John Daniels, who attends virtually all of his granddaughter's games, was in the hospital as Spirit played Wildwood on Monday in a game matching the top two teams in South Jersey. Before the game, in which No. 2 Wildwood beat No. 1 Holy Spirit, 53-41, Daniels visited her grandfather.

A new study offers reassurance about a feminine-hygiene habit that has long been suspected as a risk factor for ovarian cancer. Researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo found no link between that deadly cancer and the use of talcum powder in the genital area or on sanitary napkins, even over a 20-year period. Still, Roswell researcher Steven Piver isn't advocating such use of the floury white powder because the new findings, published in the March issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, contradict the bulk of previous research.

This was something Martina Hingis had never seen. A tennis player across the net who hit the ball so hard from so many places, a player whose gaze never wavered, whose will never faltered, whose desire to win was just as great as her own. This was the Monica Seles that Hingis had seen only on television - "when I was 9 years old or 10," Hingis said. This Seles hit her two-handed and grunting ground strokes so hard and with such cruel angles that the opponent ended up slack-jawed and rag-armed, totally exhausted and absolutely frustrated.

Karolj Seles, father and coach of tennis star Monica Seles, began chemotherapy treatments for stomach cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., last month, it was revealed yesterday. Seles, 63, was recently diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma. He originally was diagnosed with prostate cancer in June 1993 and with gastric malignancy in December 1993. The prostate cancer has not recurred, but a CAT scan in January, as part of a regular follow-up exam at the Mayo Clinic, revealed the recurrence of the rare gastric tumor.

While winning races all those years, Kim Gallagher also was winning hearts. Supporters rallied around the 1982 Upper Dublin High graduate through a spectacular track and field career that was characterized by courage, grace and dignity, and they are rallying around her now as she fights terminal stomach cancer with the same admirable qualities. "You hope people love you, and I felt they always did love me," Gallagher said in a recent telephone conversation from her home in Los Angeles.

Hall of Famer Pancho Gonzalez, one of the greatest and most colorful tennis champions in history, died of cancer at age 67. Gonzalez died Monday night at Sunrise Hospital after stomach cancer had spread throughout his body, said his brother, Ralph Gonzales, who, unlike his brother, used the Americanized spelling of the game. "We had a terrific report from doctors three weeks ago," Gonzales said yesterday. "Everything seemed to be going so well. But a week ago Wednesday, he became sick and he entered the hospital.

Micheal P. Capaldi, everybody's ace in the hole, died Sunday of cancer. He was 78 and lived in South Philadelphia. Mike Capaldi had the answer to everybody's problem. He could do plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, tailoring and auto repairs. If you were family, he did it for nothing. If you were a neighbor he did it for nothing. If Mike Capaldi never saw you before in his life, he did it for nothing. He was a one-man all-service center for other human beings. When daughter Lucy Capaldi had a clogged drain in her Alexandria, Va., home she called Dad first.