Man returns to school at 60 to study cancer that killed his wife

A 60-year-old man from Alberta, Canada, has returned to college to study the cancer that killed his wife. Powel Crosley lost his wife, Sladjana, in 2009, when she was just 58, to a rare form of ovarian cancer known as granulosa cell tumor. This type of cancer is so uncommon, it only accounts for about 5 percent of ovarian cancer cases, CBSnews reports.

Crosley, who was profiled in the Globe and Mail newspaper on Tuesday, is one of the oldest undergraduate students at the University of Alberta. He spent his earlier career working in information technology, and enrolled at the school in 2010, decades after his last stint in college as a student in geography.

He's currently doing course work in biochemistry and oncology, and helped secure a $60,000 grant to continue his research in one of the university's oncology labs -- even though he didn't have a previous science background. Crosley is using the money to fund testing on a new cancer drug developed at the University of Illinois, which has shown potential for treating the cancer that killed his wife.

Crosley said his wife's death wasn't due to the cancer specifically, but rather internal bleeding, a complication of the medication she was taking at the time. She underwent six major surgeries and several clinical trials but the cancer always recurred and eventually metastasized to her liver and lung cavity.

She was diagnosed with the cancer in 1996, some time after a visit to the emergency room in which her abdominal pain was initially misdiagnosed and blamed on gas.

In many ways, Crosley is continuing the legacy of his wife, who was a chemical engineer and studied the scientific literature about her cancer for 13 years.

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