Sheriff Says Cancer Is in Complete Remission : Law enforcement: Block credits chemotherapy with halting lymph disease. He holds a fund-raiser for his reelection campaign.

Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday he has been told by his doctors he is now cancer-free and that they consider him cured of the “high grade, fast moving” lymphatic cancer diagnosed last summer.

Block made the announcement hours before a Beverly Hills fundraising dinner which he said would kick off his campaign for a fourth term in office by raising about $300,000 in donations.

“Those people who wrote me off were a little premature,” the 69-year-old sheriff said Wednesday. “I’m not ready to hang it up yet.”

Block said the upbeat news came after six cycles of chemotherapy and followed completion of “a series of very definitive tests,” including “a number of full body scans.”

“I am told that I’m totally free of the disease and it’s in total and complete remission, and while they don’t like to use the term cured for a period of two years, the medical team tells me that they no doubt that I’m cured and they report that I’m in excellent health,” Block said.

Block added, however, that to be on the safe side he will undergo two more cycles of chemotherapy over the next six weeks. He will undergo examinations every three months.

This was the second time the sheriff has reported recovering from cancer. About three years ago, he underwent a successful operation for prostrate cancer and there has been no recurrence.

Block expressed thanks to hundreds of friends and strangers who sent encouraging messages that he said had helped him “maintain an appropriate mental perspective” during chemotherapy. His doctors had told him, he said, that “in dealing with an illness such as this, a malignancy, your ability to maintain a positive (attitude) is important.”

Doctors told him from the beginning, Block said, that without treatment lymphatic cancer could kill him in three to six months. With chemotherapy he could be cured in six months, Block said his doctors told him.

None of his doctors appeared with Block at the press conference. From the start, they have made no public comment on his case.

In remarks prepared for Wednesday night’s $500-a-plate fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton, Block spoke about his return to good health and his determination to wage an aggressive campaign “with full vigor and enthusiasm.”

So far, however, there has been little sign that the sheriff faces either well-funded or administratively-experienced challengers.

Three relatively low-ranking deputies in the Sheriff’s Department--homicide detective Gilbert Carrillo, 43, patrol Sgt. John R. Stites II, 40, and Deputy Alex Villanueva, 30--have announced their intention to run against him. All say morale in the department is low.

None of them is likely to have anything like the money Block expected to raise at his dinner, and the sheriff said Wednesday that just as in earlier campaigns, he does not anticipate having to run any television commercials to win reelection.

He said Wednesday he does not expect his health to be an issue in his campaign, although he acknowledged it was conceivable his opponents would raise it.