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I want to thank you, Miss Lisa, and all my FR friends for their prayers and good wishes.

My situation is in some ways familiar to me. In August of 1997 they said I was terminal. I would perhaps live until early December of 1997. I had they said a terminal form of lung cancer from which almost no one survived as long as a year.

They gave me a then experimental treatment. And as a secondary shot, small doses of Cisplatinum that worked on other forms of lung cancer.

After 9 weeks of treatment the cancer was half its former size and after 15 weeks it was one quarter its original size. Radiation was started along with the standard lung cancer treatment and in February 1998 I was pronounced cancer free. It was a miracle they said.

But I was told that the cancer could and likely would come back at anytime. The oncologists said the first symptom in would notice was pain in my chest area. And sure enough in late may of 1998 I started to have chest pains. I was sure my time was up.

But a Cat Scan revealed two things. No new cancer and a shrinkage of the scar tissue in my lungs. It was the oncologust said... a good pain.

I remained cancer free until late September of 2006. I collapsed while on my way to visit Lisa. I was going out Western Avenue in Chillicothe about 7:00Pm that evening when I passed out. I was going 35 miles an hour at the time.
Their was a cop behind me. He called the emergency squad and they took me to the local hospital. The cat scan showed a brain tumor.

I remember little after passing out. They found my next of kin in my bilfold. They asked that I be taken to Riveriside hospital in Columbus. A faint memory of helicopter blade noise as I was life flighted to Columbus.

The next day they removed the tumor. They told my Daughter what they would operate at 10:00AM and that it would be a 4.5 to 5 hour operation. She arrived at the hospital at about 9:30Am. I was not in the emergency room. I was not in the operating room. A nurse told my Daughter that they had operated at 8:00Am and I was brought out to the recovery room at 9:00Am.

My daughter was sure they had opened me up... saw that it was an impossible situation and just sewed me back up. A 5 hour operation in an hour... not likely good news.

But they had removed the tumor.. It was encapsulated and they got it all in an hour.

I remember waking up in the recovery room. I must have stired a bit waking up. When I opened my eyes my daughter was standing over me. Her face just inches from mine. I have never seen her with more conserned and frightened. I looked her in the eyes and said, “You know what Pam? You are a lot prettier than I remember you being...”

The relief on her face was enormous.. She turned to her brother and sister and said.. “Dad appears to be just fine!”

Tests at Riverside Hospital showed it was the same type cancer as had been in my lung in 1997. But not the type they had mistakenly diagnosed back then. The Biopsy report back then had been wrong. And the minor doses of Ciplatinum given in 1997 had been responsible for my victory over cancer.. not the experimental CHEMO they gave me in large doses.

This time the same cancer is back again. And I am getting massive doses of Cisplatinum. They do not say I am terminal. They do not say I am curable. They say I am treatable. My Daughter is married to a Doctor. And he and his buddies (other doctors) say the same thing. Tehy saythe cancer will eventually get me. But not likely this time. Perhaps in 10 years or so. But not now. I hope they are right.

I have had no side effects except loss of weight and loss of hair. I am a bit weak and except for the shortness of breath I feel pretty good. I am breathing better than I was two weeks ago. That is when the found out I had pneumonia. I am on oxygen and my blood oxygen is testing fine.

In any event tomorrow I will know how well the CHEMO is working. This is after two treatments of Chemo so I don’t expect that the cancer is smaller. But if it has not increased in size that will be a very good thing. This cancer with out treatment doubles in size every month.

I also start three days of CHEMO tomorrow. I am getting three days of CHEMO every three weeks. After the third set of Chemo has time to work, 3 weeks from now, I should be noticing some improvement in breathing.

Lisa, Darling, if tomorrow is good news, then I may try to come home this coming weekend. Perhaps we can spend sometime together.. That would do me more good than anything else.

Thanks so much to all of you for your prayers and kind words. You will never know what it means to me to have so many Freepers keeping me in their prayers. May God bless you all.

Thanks,

ray