"Sun is shining, weather is sweet.."

I just have to talk about how good it feels to receive good news.

As I already spoke about, my stepdad was diagnosed only 5 short days after I finished chemo with prostate cancer. 70% of men over 70 get it (1 in 4 men alive!), so it seemed pretty treatable initially. But, it's been hard for Mere and I to really feel like this cancer thing is "done" when someone else in your family immediately is diagnosed as you finish. To be honest, I've actually been a little ticked off about it: I can't understand how it could happen so soon. I mean, I've not even grown my hair back or gotten feeling back in my limbs and this occurs. It's just not fair for my mom and mike....and all of us who care about him, for that matter.

Anyway, after getting over all those feelings, we were just hoping for the best and trying to remain positive. When he got his CAT scan they found "spots" in his pancreas, on his kidney and in his knee (?). Of course we all freaked out. I know I did. I would never have told my mom or mere or ash what I was thinking, but I've heard bad stories about pancreatic cancer (Houser) and was trying to prepare myself for the worst, which was scary, and made my heart feel like a tomato in a vice grip.

Well, they finally saw the prostate and pancreatic docs two days ago and the news could not have been better. Everything was unrelated, the kidney stuff was normal for a guy his age, the affected lymph nodes were from an old infection, the pancreatic growth is unrelated, and caught super duper early, and maybe even benign (tests next week). The prostate cancer is only stage 1 (mine was stage 3) and will be treated w/ seed therapy which has a REALLY high success rate and is non-invasive. Wow, what a load off our backs. And, my mom and I share a birthday, which was yesterday, and man, what a birthday gift that was. I have never felt so much like laughing, crying, dancing, hooting, hollering and all that at once. I finally was able to be excited about finishing my ordeal and really savor the fact that I've been to hell and back and now I'm all done. You don't know how good it feels. Hell, I feel good again. I forgot what it's like and it's real sweet.

So, in conclusion, good news is the best. My family has learned how to deal with bad news this last year, b/c at every turn, it seemed like something bad would happen. I know Mike has some tough stuff too get thru, but he's gonna do just that: get thru it. And we'll all be there standing by him for it. I always heard God doesn't give you what you can't handle, but thank you to him for finally throwing us a bone. It's about time.