I hate to write about bad news but I knew you all would want to know. Two family member this year have found out that they have cancer! Boy this hits home for me! As most of you know I lost my wife, Cathey, to cancer.
First my cousin Marsha found out about a month ago that she has several tumors. So she has been undergoing chemo treatment for those. I Just got a email update from her sister Pam that their are no new tumors showing up but no real reduction in the number of tumors she currently has. The large one in her lung is smaller, THAT’S GOOD NEWS! Marsha will be going back into the hospital on August 27th for more chemo treatments. Please pray for Marsha and family and of course our hope is that they can stop any growth of the tumors and maybe even see some of these tumors go away.
I also got an email today from Mary Kitley, my sister-in-law, telling us about Kristin, her daughter. Kristin had a mole removed from her leg a couple of years ago but it came back this year. She went in and had it removed but the biopsy report was not so good. She has melanoma cancer! The good new is that it wasn’t to big or deep (0.2 mm in depth). I guess they refer to that as stage 1A from what Mary had in her email. So the next step is to have a plastic surgeon go in and remove more of the tissue surrounding the area to make sure they got all the cancer cells. She is scheduled to have this done this coming Friday. Please pray for her as well. If everything goes well she will not need any further treatment.
I copied part of Mary’s email as I think we all should take note and take care of things early when possible.
“This has been a good affirmation of the “ABC’s” of skin cancer (you can Google “melanoma” if you don’t know what they are) — her mole looked like a brown freckle, but it was asymmetrical — just a little larger than a pencil eraser. Not ugly or scary looking at all. She has never been to a tanning bed or cared about tanning, but she inherited my side of the family’s fair skin. Just a reminder to us all of the dangers of the sun!!! Put hats on those babies!!!’
