I also thought AIDS was a possibility ...but this article said he
had pancreatic cancer 4 years ago .... and had a tumor removed
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/06/13/steve-jobs-life-after-the-whipple/-snip-
There’s another possibility, one that is consistent with both Jobs’ medical history and the changes in his appearance. It stems directly from the type of cancer for which he was treated four years ago and the nature of that treatment.
In 2003 Jobs learned that he had a malignant tumor in his pancreas - a large gland behind the stomach that supplies the body with insulin and digestive enzymes. The most common type of pancreatic cancer - adenocarcinoma - carries a life expectancy of about a year. Jobs was lucky; he had an extremely rare form called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor that can be treated surgically, without radiation or chemotherapy.
As Fortune reported in a March 5 cover story, (”The trouble with Steve Jobs“), Jobs tried various alternative therapies for nine months before the tumor was taken out on July 31, 2004, at the Stanford University Medical Clinic in Palo Alto, near his home.
“This weekend I underwent a successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my pancreas,” Jobs wrote in an e-mail to Apple’s staff the next week. “I will be recuperating during the month of August, and expect to return to work in September.”
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