September 8, 2017 | Doyle Hamm Files Second Update


On September 8, 2017, Doyle Hamm’s legal team filed his second status update with the Alabama Supreme Court to tell the court about his worsening medical condition. The extensive 777-pages of medical records are clear that Doyle’s cancer and medical condition has taken a turn for the worse since March 2017. The medical records reflect that, back in 2014, Doyle suffered from a very serious cancer in the skull and lymph nodes. At the time, on June 6, 2014, for instance, it was determined that Doyle suffered from “the presence of a tumor extending through the foramina into the pterygoid space and into the middle cranial fossa. There is involvement of the cavernous sinus as well as extension into the left side of the nasopharynx.” See Donaldson Correctional Facility Medical Records, p. 111. At that time in 2014, there were indications that there was a risk of “involvement of the spinal fluid,” which was why the doctors requested and received “approval from the prison medical clinic for the patient to have a lumbar puncture with cytology” and recommended that the doctors “proceed with radiation therapy as [Mr. Hamm] is going to require some form of local treatment even if he takes systemic chemotherapy.” Ibid. After severe radiation therapy to Doyle’s skull in 2014 and an apparent improvement of his cancer, however, his medical condition began to deteriorate in March 2017. It is around that time, for instance on March 7, 2017, that Doyle began to complain about “‘knots’ on my chest,” with the doctors reporting that “these feel like lymph nodes.” See Donaldson Correctional Facility Medical Records, p. 453; see also ibid., p. 472 (“Need to see the doctor I have lumps in my chest and to have my pain medicine renew”); ibid., p. 470 (“lumps in chest”). In March 2017, the doctors began to mention in the medical records the possibility of “lymphadenopathy,” see ibid., p. 453. For full details, read the status report in the PLEADINGS folder.