Past 3 months Update on Dad's battle with cancer

Back in October of 2010, dad had started feeling pain in his hip. After weeks of "tolerating" the pain, he went to the doctor where they discovered a massive blood clot from his hip area to his foot. He was admitted immediately into the hospital where he was to receive blood thinning medication and a "stint" to prevent the clot from traveling to his heart. Possible treatment was to do a major clot busting procedure. The doctors decided to have dad undergo a brain scan to make sure there were no tumors in the brain as the clot busting procedure could cause tumors to bleed. They discovered a tumor in his brain. The initial response we received from one doctor was that dad had days to live. We were given hope when dad met with the neurosurgeon that was confident he could remove the tumor with dad being able to recover and ultimately start taking blood thinning medication. Within a week, dad had the tumor removed and recovered fairly quickly. He was cleared to go back to work and could start taking blood thinning medication for the clot in his leg. Dad had received one big blast of radiation to the brain area where the tumor had been to make sure we got all the cancer in that area. As always, he continues on with his positive spirit that has touched so many.

This picture was taken before Thanksgiving, only days after he returned home from brain surgery. Doesn't he look incredible! We are so thankful.

Dad did still have pain in his hip area and tests had to be done to make sure there was nothing else going on. On December 23, 2010, we got a call that dad did have a tumor in his bone near the hip area. While there is no cure for bone cancer, it can be treated to stunt growth and to decrease pain.

Dad is towards the end of a 15 day treatment of radiation to that targeted area. He has been experiencing fatigue from the radiation which is a normal side effect. We pray that the radiation will work quickly to remove some of the pain that dad is still experiencing in the hip and that it will stop the spreading/growth of the existing tumor.