Kaiser Permanente Helps Guitar Enthusiast Recover From Colon Cancer

Len Laviolette, a land surveyor from San Diego, California, was getting winded too easily at work. He went to Kaiser Permanente to get checked out. That evening, he was called back to the facility and had a colonoscopy in the early hours of the morning.

Shortly after the procedure, Len learned he had colon cancer. He then met Amilcar Exume, MD, a surgeon at Kaiser Permanente San Diego Medical Center. "When he sat and talked to me, right then I knew I was going to be okay, knew in my heart," recalled
Laviolette, whose only options were surgery followed by chemotherapy.

During surgery to remove the cancerous mass, Dr. Exume also removed 23 of Len's lymph nodes. They, too, proved to be cancerous and Len qualified for a chemotherapy clinical trial. Today, Len remains cancer-free. "I'm a real fan of Kaiser. I can't think of a better place to be covered for health than Kaiser."

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