The Best Lease of All: A Second Lease on Life
Barbara Harris
August 6, 2006
Building Owners & Managers Association of Greater Los Angeles: Newsline, February 2007
Los Angeles was booming, and in 1955 Barbara Harris began her career in real estate. By 1961 she had acquired several high-rise commercial buildings as part of her property management portfolio.
Barbara spent hours amidst the tradesmen as they hustled to complete drywall, painting, and final changes so that tenants could move in on time and according to spec.
But her work ethic and desire to know the entire process came at a hidden, terrible cost: as drywallers mixed the joint compound and sanded it down, and as workers serviced and repaired insulated equipment in mechanical rooms, they created clouds of deadly asbestos, breathed in by workmen and bystanders like Barbara. In the late 70's asbestos was eliminated from joint compounds, which are no longer a health hazard. One of the terrible effects is a rare cancer known as mesothelioma, an often fatal and malignant cancer of the lung linings.
Some forty years later, Barbara woke up with a pain in her chest. Her doctors were baffled, as they counseled her to "wait and see." More than a year later a biopsy confirmed that she had malignant pleural mesothelioma.
In shock, she and her son hit the Internet and found Roger Worthington, an asbestos attorney and supporter of mesothelioma research. Worthington's web site and the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation strongly encouraged patients to consult with Dr. Robert Cameron, one of the world's leading surgeons for mesothelioma, chief of thoracic surgery at UCLA medical center and director of the Pacific Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Barbara met with Dr. Cameron and underwent his innovative surgery and radiation program over the past six months.
She's readying for a new therapy regimen with interferon, and feels fortunate to have me Dr. Cameron. "Things are looking good," she says. "And like the old saying goesno sense in borrowing trouble!"
*** POSTED MARCH 7, 2007 ***