Houston Chronicle
May 10, 2007, 12:58AM
Tammy Faye, suffering from cancer, tells fans goodbye
Chronicle wire reports
She was always flamboyant, sometimes outrageous, and now she apparently is near death.
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner announced Wednesday on her Web site that doctors have stopped treating her cancer in a goodbye note to her fans. "I am down ... to 65 pounds, and look like a scarecrow. I need God's miracle to swallow," she wrote.
In 1996 Tammy Faye was diagnosed with colon cancer. In 2004 she learned the cancer had returned, this time in her lungs. In her note Wednesday she referred to her "sick stomach."
She said her daughter, Tammy Sue, and friends are staying with her while her husband, Roe Messner, continues to build church buildings.
The former televangelist came to fame with her former husband, Jim Bakker, as hosts of the PTL Club television show and related ministries, which ended in financial and sexual scandals.
In recent years she rehabilitated her image somewhat by appearing on reality TV shows.
In the final paragraph of her Web statement, she let a little of her old effervescent self come through as she tried to encourage others with debilitating illnesses.
"To those of you who are suffering as I. ... 'Don't give up'!"
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4791140.html
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