More than a year ago, San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro had a five and a half hour surgery to remove part of his small intestine, part of his colon, 44 lymph nodes, his appendix and his gallbladder. Surgeons left behind two tumors on his liver.
Castro was fighting for his life against a neuroendocrine cancer diagnosis that had knocked his world off its axis the year before … a diagnosis he’d stumbled upon incidentally after a car accident in Spain.
On this episode of Petrie Dish, Castro shared his cancer journey — from grappling with his own mortality to returning to the full activity of life, including legislating — after such major surgery.
He noted that cancer is the leading cause of death among Latinos in Texas, and he explored the enormous disparities in access to prohibitively expensive medical treatment faced by Americans from all walks of life.
The journey began with the story of the Spanish boar that saved Castro’s life.
