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Fatal Illness Inspires Iowan To Confront Candidates

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By DAVID PITT, The Associated Press

Published: December 26, 2007

DES MOINES, Iowa - A little more than a year ago, Kathy Stangl received a devastating prognosis: Doctors told her she had a few months to live.

Then April came and Stangl, still very much alive, did what comes naturally to Iowans - she started meeting presidential candidates.

"I just think we have a unique opportunity here. It's a rare privilege to talk to everybody running," said Stangl, a 56-year-old mother of two from Des Moines who has an incurable lung disease. "I see the caucuses as a big round-robin open-table job interview. Why should we hesitate to ask any questions?"
Stangl hasn't hesitated, attending nearly 50 events with presidential hopefuls from both parties and talking one-on-one with several. She tells them about her illness and gives her pitch for directing more health care dollars toward research, early intervention and prevention.

This month in a crowded Des Moines office building, Stangl put former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on the spot.

Moving slowly with the help of a walking stick topped with a carving of a morel mushroom, Stangl edged through the supporters, photographers and reporters until she stood before Huckabee.

He greeted her. She told him of her diagnosis and a need to redirect health care spending.

"Actually, that's what I did in Arkansas," Huckabee said. "We started moving our whole state system toward prevention."
Stangl asked what he would do as president to change the national health care system.

Huckabee said it must start with federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

"If we don't set the model, then the rest of the industry doesn't move that way," he said.
Stangl was pleased with the exchange.

"He did answer the questions," she said. "He didn't blow me off."

It's not that she's a single-issue voter, but Stangl said people should consider changes to the health care system, and she wants more to be aware of a disease that probably will kill her.

It was 10:30 one evening in October 2006 when a doctor told her she had lymphangioleiomyomatosis, a progressive lung disease. The doctor told her she was past the upper age of life expectancy for women with the disease and she was likely to be dead by April.

More than a year after that initial word, Stangl has no explanation for her survival, although she notes that LAM is unfamiliar to many physicians.
Stangl said conservative estimates are that 250,000 people, mostly women, have the disease and don't know it. Meeting with presidential candidates is her way of spreading the word and pushing for more research.

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