Gov. Blanco’s fight with ocular melanoma brings attention to rare disease

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – During Governor Kathleen Blanco’s address to the graduates of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in December of 2017, she said she was praying for a miracle.

“There’s no known cure for my illness,” Blanco said. “I am enduring some interesting treatments on a liver that lives in a body that is otherwise healthy and strong and my mind is still very clear, so of course like every person with something dreadful that they’re dealing with, a cancer or heart disease that’s putting their life in the balance, I’m praying for a miracle.”

That miracle never came for Blanco, but Dr. Vince Cataldo, an oncologist at the Mary Bird Perkins Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center, says her high-profile case has brought much needed attention to a disease many don’t know about.