Blessed remission

my family

If you know me personally, you are probably familiar with my dad's health situation. For those of you that aren't, let me briefly re-cap. About eighteen months ago, my dad was diagnosed with kidney cancer. This was extremely unexpected, because he doesn't really drink very often, and is a fitness nut - runs on his elliptical machine regularly, etc.

Anyway, he had surgery in the summer of 2004, and four weeks later was all the way over in Estonia, my wife's country of origin, for our wedding. What can I say, he's a trooper. About one year later, the cancer had come back, in the void where his kidney had been. It was diagnosed as a type that could not be treated with traditional chemotherapy, so for the past few months he has been undergoing self-administered treatments, via injection.

The doctors predicted a 50/50 percent chance of success. They told him if this treatment did not work, that he was looking at about a ten month timetable. Now, I know everyone has to go sometime, somehow, but I was really hoping that God wouldn't take him just yet. Imagine my relief when today, my mom called and told me that after his checkup, the doctors found no sign of cancer.

Praise be to God, and serious props to the doctors and nurses who helped!