Valdosta Native battles cancer, takes on the Appalachian Trail Trails and Tribulations Jay Platt's Story of One Man's Courage by Charlie McCrea, Contributing Writer, in Valdosta Magazine , Winter 1998, pages 38-41. Jody Platt and I are sitting in a sunny nook of his Lake Park home, talking about his brother, Jay.
Sincerity does that.
We knew from the start that he wasn't going to have to go through this alone. There is no known cure. Von Hippel-Lindau is caused by the loss of one tumor suppressor gene. This makes the afflicted person unable to combat the tumors that pop up all through the human body on a regular basis. Thus far, Jay has lost his left eye and part of a kidney.