Conversation with Grandson Shawn the other day went like this.
Shawn: “Gran J. for Black History month I have to do a paper on a black musician and I’m writing about Bob Marley. Do you know how old he was when he died?”
Me: “40, 50 somewhere in there.”
Shawn “No, he was 36. Do you know how he died?”
Me: “Something to do with getting hurt playing soccer.”
Shawn “No, he died of cancer.”
Me “Lung cancer?”
Shawn: “No, he got cancer in his big toe.”
Me: “What?”
Shawn: “He got skin cancer in his big toe. It spread though out the rest of his body and killed him.”
Not that I doubted Shawn and his research but after our conversation, I did some googling to find out he was right on.
In July 1977, Marley was found to have a type of a malignant melanoma under the nail of a toe. Contrary to urban legend, this lesion was not primarily caused by an injury during a football match that year, but was instead a symptom of the already-existing cancer. Marley turned down his doctors’ advice to have his toe amputated, citing his religious beliefs, and instead the nail and nail bed were removed and a skin graft taken from his thigh to cover the area. From(Wikipedia.)