The Bounty Hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman has just told the world he has skin cancer, a day after announcing he’s getting engaged.
As anyone who's lost a spouse to cancer knows, the months afterward can be filled with moments of despair. 'Dog' Chapman described one huge low point in his life following skin-cancer surgery, a diagnosis he revealed for the first time in an interview with The SUN.
Read MoreChapman’s Skin Cancer Revealed
According to Chapman, his cancer diagnosis happened after he had lost his wife, Beth Chapman, to throat cancer in 2019. He had gotten a call from his doctor informing him of his diagnosis, and was told the operation would be quick and done immediately."I had a sore on my head and the doctor called me and said, ‘You have cancer.’ And I’m like ‘Oh great.’ Chapman says, sharing his diagnosis publicly for the first time in his SUN interview. “I said, ‘Is there an expiration date?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, it’s a quick one. So you need to get up here right now and let us cut it out of your head.'”
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Luckily for Chapman, the skin cancer was not aggressive and resembled more of “a rash” rather than more serious skin cancers such as melanoma. He says he had the cancer removed from his nose and forehead.
“The good news is I’m not dying," Chapman says.
While we don't know Chapman's diagnosis, types of skin cancer, including melanoma, is often treated through surgery. Mohs surgery involves the excision of suspicious tissue as doctors analyze it in real-time for signs of cancerous cells.
Snowstorm in the Hospital Parking Lot
Once leaving the hospital, Chapman said that a snowstorm had blown into the city. While searching for his car, he recalled feeling extremely alone and desperate for companionship during that time not to mention cold.
“So I was really depressed. I felt so alone,” Chapman said. Eventually, with the help of hospital security, Chapman found his car, but the experience left him shaken.
"Beth is Partying in Heaven"
Champman said those moments after his skin-cancer surgery prompted him to pray. “I Googled on my phone how God gave Adam Eve,” he said. “When I read this I said, ‘Lord I’m out there looking.’ You know, I can’t go to christian.com, I can’t do all this stuff because all my fans would freak out.”
“So I said ‘I’ve got to have somebody Lord, Beth is up there partying in Heaven and I’m down here balling my eyes out here every single day. Lord I need more.’ “I said, ‘This is your responsibility now … look I tried to do the best thing, but now I need a woman.”
Helping Others Who've Lost A Spouse To Cancer
Shortly after his prayer, Chapman says he received a text from Francie Frane, a Colorado rancher, who had lost her husband Bob to cancer six months before Beth died. A few weeks earlier, Dog had left a voice message for Bob’s excavating business, unaware that he had passed away.
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The text launched a friendship that led to a meeting over coffee. “I thought I was being trained to help others who have lost a loved one,” Dog said. “And I had no idea, because she told me she was a rancher and you know, I thought she was completely out of my league.”And I call her up and say, ‘Do you want to meet at the cafe?’ I go, ‘Now listen, this is not a date,’ because, Francie was a widow and I felt like hitting on widows – that’s not cool. ”
“I Look Like Frankenstein”
Chapman was still healing from skin cancer surgery when he set up the meeting with Frane. “I look like Frankenstein and I’m sitting down in the cafe and in walks this cowgirl. She’s just got a whole different look than I ever thought,” he recalls. “She sat down and we start talking… and I think ‘No this could never happen.’
“But on my way home I remembered my prayer. I remember thinking ‘My God, this can’t be her Lord?'”
Related: Dog Chapman Honors His Late Wife Beth with Snowy Photos She Took Before She Died of Cancer
The pair have been inseparable since and Chapman’s family approves of the match. Of the recent quarantine, Chapman says, “Good things come out of a curse – where else would you get engaged and then be together all day and all night? And if you go anywhere you could get arrested?
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