George Pittman is back in class and back in the saddle. "All third, fourth and fifth graders come to me, so I've got 150 kids."
He's a volunteer math and science tutor. "It's modeled after some work that's been done at MIT."
And he just loves helping young minds, grow. "The elementary school kids are neat because they really want to learn."
But George is also spending his time, battling malignant melanoma like these in his left leg. Doctors cut out four in less than a year. "I got a little melanoma factory in here. They just keep coming, so, you know, I've got to do something different."
Vadim Gushchin, MD Oncologist said, "If you cut it out, it's going to come back, most certainly."
Doctor Vadim Gushchin treated him with an intense, isolated blast of chemotherapy. Using small catheters like this one, surgeons infused a massive dose of chemo into George's leg alone. The procedure took just 30 minutes.
Pittman said, "I was a little set back with it because 'chemotherapy' that's a scary word."
In a third of cases, though, all nodules disappear. In the old method, it meant larger incisions and catheters. This is minimally-invasive all around.
Doctor Gushchin said, "The nodule stopped growing, at least stopped growing for three to four weeks since we did the procedure."
Good news for George, who wasted no time getting back to what he loves to do. "After the surgery, I really felt pretty good, so I went back and tried to teach for a day."
