DAVID STEWART LOST his battle with cancer today.
He died following a struggle with stomach cancer. His treatments involved using chemo and a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies normally licensed for bowel cancer. In his blog, David had talked hopefully of starting a new cycle of chemotherapy with surgery to take place later in the year. His condition was worse than the initial diagnosis revealed and he never got the surgery. This happens sometimes with tumours that are too large.
Those in the Irish blogging community knew David Stewart as a grandfather of online communications. He is pictured in the foreground here in a meet-up of Irish bloggers in Dublin, along with John Cloudlands and Treasa Winds and Breezes. His efforts on mailing lists and among bloggers extended back to early 2002 when he greeted me with a "Hey! It's underway in Ireland" during a Motorola launch. David's cousin provided me with Motorola kit back then, giving me my first FM radio signal from my phone. Thanks to David's connections, I got information from Motorola about unblocking Bluetooth on the V710 series phones.
As his health declined, David got out less. At some events, his deteriorating condition caused him to fall asleep faster than Marc Canter at a software launch. Most didn't understand the condition of this slumbering giant.
Many of my friends and a wide swath of my family die of cancer. Knowing this, I'm lighting a candle for 46-year-old David Stewart. Bye, for now.
David Stewart was ScienceFriction.Typepad.com.
