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Roger Ebert Takes 'Leave Of Presence' After Cancer Returns

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Roger Ebert announced cancer has returned to his body and he will be reducing his movie review workload while receiving treatment for his illness.

The 70-year-old has previously undergone surgery to illuminate cancer in his thyroid and salivary glands, which resulted in a lost of his ability to speak and eat.

Writing in his online journal, Ebert, who was hospitalized last year with a hip fracture, says his latest bout of cancer was discovered after a “painful fracture” that made it difficult for him to walk.

“The ‘painful fracture’ that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer. It is being treated with radiation, which has made it impossible for me to attend as many movies as I used to.”

Roger Ebert described last year as his busiest, in which he wrote over 306 movie reviews, and now he’ll  need to take a ”leave of presence.”

He explained what this “leave of presence” entails, which would have him rely on other colleagues, like fellow Chicago Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper, to share the bulk of the review writing, leaving him to write only about those movies he’s interested in.

The Pulitzer Prize winner  says he also plans to spend time writing about his own health challenges.

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