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| One Awesome Man. |
On October 10th, 2014, this world of ours lost another amazing
human to the beast that is cancer.
Pictured is my Uncle. This man was
not a smoker or a drinker and led a healthy lifestyle and was struck with Papillary
Thyroid Cancer twelve years ago. (As most of you remember, that’s the same cancer I had last year.)
“Papillary Thyroid Cancer is the BEST cancer to get.” Or so I was told by doctors and other people
with whom I spoke last year on my own cancerous journey. I kept telling folks that there is NO “BEST
CANCER” to get, as my Uncle had been battling for twelve years with that very
“best cancer.”
I’ve never personally known anyone to HAVE cancer for a
full decade. I am positive millions of
people do and have, but not in my personal sphere. Most of the folks who’ve encountered cancer,
myself included, either beat it with treatment in an amount of time… or as my
Dad and other friends I’ve lost—they don’t beat it at all and it’s a flame that
burns quickly and most brutally.
So
when I say the man had cancer for just over a full decade, he did. His was an accidental finding. After wrecking his bicycle years
ago, he had x-rays done to check for broken ribs. That’s when they discovered he had a tumor in
his lung. Naturally, he was treated for
lung cancer immediately. The treatments
for Lung Cancer are NOT effective for treating Papillary Thyroid Cancer. After getting jabbed, probed, and every other
uncomfortable test, they discovered the thyroid cancer.
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| That's right. |
My Uncle then underwent all the Radioactive Iodine
treatments and surgeries. And
nothing. The cancer went… NOWHERE. The
thing about Papillary Thyroid Cancer... it moves SLOW.
He did clinical trials of drugs that helped his tumors
stop growing for a few years, so we got to keep him longer than they said in
the beginning. Here's what the
Doctors said a decade ago: “That this
cancer spreads so slow that something else would probably kill him first,
before the cancer got bad enough to.” Since we aren't cartons of milk with an expiration date stamped on our forehead, it turned out that this "best cancer" was indeed what took him away.
My Uncle was one of the toughest men I have ever
known.
For twelve years, he lived knowing cancer was slowly
doing what cancer loves to do. During that time, he lived with compassion, grace, love and an innate understanding of
what people can go through without breaking.
He had good days and bad days.
Who doesn’t?? He lived his life
with purpose and continued to teach his Sunday School Classes up until the last
few months when it became less possible for him to leave his house. He literally changed hundreds of people’s
lives with his teaching, preaching and absolutely brilliant sense of
humor.
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| View From On Top of Fryman Canyon, Los Angeles. |
He was my biggest spiritual beacon and guru and now he is
hanging out with the most excellent company of everyone who greeted him on the
other side. He will be forever missed by
all of us still here.
PS:
There is NO such thing as the “Best Cancer” to
have—unless it’s NO cancer.
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