For those who keep up with the status of various friends of ours (and our family’s) with cancer, I have some updates.
First, I looked back on what I’ve posted and I see that I never included some people (who have or had cancer) in the updates. I’ll add one in specific today, but there are more.
The one I have to add today is Dave. When my dad was growing up, there were three families who were ‘close’. Throughout the last 7 decades, they’ve remained family friends. I suppose the passage of time spreads people out and so in my generation (the grandkids), there’s not so much contact. None of us actually grew up together. But the kids, that is, my dad’s generation, kept in contact despite being spread out to the far corners of the country.
Dave was one of those kids. He was roughly my dad’s age and they grew up together. He was a theologian and seminary professor. He most recently taught at Fuller Theological Seminary as a Professor of New Testament.
Several years ago, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Connie Kang wrote, for the Los Angeles Times, a great article about his battle with cancer in 2005. I received word this morning that he passed away last Friday. He was still able to wish his wife, Jan, a a happy 48th anniversary (!) just a few days earlier. Both of his daughters were able to be with him at various times during his last week.
As for the rest of the updates, there’s nothing super fresh, but here’s what I do know. The test results for Angel continue to come back negative (excellent news). I’ve played with Scott several times lately (at church) and he continues to be recovering well as far as I can tell (also excellent news). I don’t have any significant updates on Marshall, though I do know that we’re planning to spend a little time together next month and he’s planning a trip to Greece in October which, last I heard, had a 50/50 chance of happening according to the doctors. I’d say that’s about as good of news as could be expected in his case.
Also, not previously mentioned, there are several people (specifically pilots) at work struggling with cancer, including a new case since my last update. This new case (whose name I won’t mention because I haven’t asked him) is someone I’ve flown with. He was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago with colon cancer, has already had surgery, and within the last week has received the news that it’s at stage IV and has spread to the liver and lymph nodes. It sounds as though they’ll continue to pursue a fairly aggressive treatment plan.
I think that’s probably enough for now….
V-