Praying for your complete healing!

God is with you Gunney.

Greetings,

                         First off, let me take a few lines to thank you all for your prayers, thoughts, emails, and phone calls during this extremely trying time in our life. Cindy and I believe that prayers work and the Good Lord listens to sincere hearts.  Again, you all have proven this to be the case. Words cannot express the gratitude that we feel.  And as Cindy says, I was certainly feeling the love.

We were able to have the surgery in Mount Vernon, Illinois at Saint Mary's, Good Samaritan Hospital. The Lord again works in mysterious ways, it a Catholic Hospital and one of the Head Nuns, Sister Benot is Cindy's bosses roommate (she is the principle at St Theresa's Catholic School  where Cindy volunteers). Anyway,  Sister Benot came down before surgery and prayed with us. The Staff was incredible and got the ball rolling (no pun intended).:-)

The nurse that prepped me for surgery was a former Female Marine from the 1960's. She was awesome as well as hard as nails. She held my hand and we ended our conversation with a Semper Fi before leaving pre-op.

Surgery went well yesterday. I was in and out less than an hour. I was in recovery a couple of hours. We did get some bad news, but the good news over shadowed it.

Stage I Cancer (Seminoma) was found in my the right testical, however it did look to be isolated to the testical, and the Doc saw no evidence of spreading. The CT scan came out well and only showing the mass in my right testicle. My blood work has also come back normal. This all answered prayers. Of course the Doc can not be definite until the pathology results come back from the lab. We are scheduled to meet with him next Friday to discuss the results and the program for surveillance.

Other than being a little lighter in the under carriage, I am a little sore. I'm walking a little slow, but walking just the same.. The railroad has taken care of us by letting me work in the office for a couple of weeks starting next week until I get on full duty.

As always, and  as you all know, Cindy has remained amazing through this all. I do not know where I would be without her. Please continue your prayers until we get though the woods on this. For the mean time, everything is pointing in the right direction towards recovery and healing.

Again, please accept our heartfelt thanks for your support and we will keep you updated.

That is great news Gunney! The Son is shinning on you and your family.  I will add you to my prayer list so your covered from NC.

God will never let us down or put more on us than we can handle.

Oh that makes me smile  

prayers sent for you; keep your heart in his hands;

Prayers sent from this Ol bowhunter keep your eye on the Lord and he will carry you if need be, God Bless

This is so cool!!!!
continued prayers

Hey Gunney that is awesome! I pray God continues to find favor with you and your family!

Prayer sent.

Hey Billy, that is great news. Received your email and have been praying for you. Will continue with the prayers. As soon as spring gets here we need to get together and catch a few fish.

       

Gunney,

Humor is good medicine and you've not lost yours for sure! Thanks for the update. Been away from the puter as I moved and switched ISP's...so here is a Boohyah for ya!  

Keep the Son in your eyes! Praises for such good news and keep the healing coming!

After a long day yesterday and the confirmation of 4 pathologists from St. Mary't to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, and then  on to The MAYO Clinic, the determination was made that they had discovered an extremely rare Adenomatoid Benign Tumor inside of my right testical.

Basically,  the Doc said, you even stumped the pathologists, since none of them expected this type of tumor to be in the testicle. Everything pointed to Stage I Seminoma Cancer.

While my wife Cindy says not to expand with too many details; I felt I had to tell you why this is a true miracle and a testimony to the power of prayer. Please give me a minute to explain and I'll let you decide for yourself

These are the facts about my case:

1.   A Testicular Mass is tumor and is 99% of the time Cancerous (95 % of the time is Seminoma/Non Seminoma. 4 % of the time is a Germ Cell Type of Cancer and 1% of the time is something else). I had a Testicular mass that felt, looked, and acted just like Seminoma.

2.   Two Doctors concurred exactly before surgery took place that it was cancer

3.   Immediately following the removal surgery, the surgeon and pathologist did an initial check and felt extremely confident that the lump was Seminoma. Stage I Cancer. Moreover, this wasn't their first time seeing this. This surgeon is a highly regarded expert in his field of testicular cancer.

4.   After the testical was sent to Barnes for evaluation, it took three pathologists to confirm the rarity of this Adenomatoid Benign Tumor. So basically the odds of this showing up where it did is as even more rare than the 1% I discussed earlier.

5.   Basically, I require no further treatment.

The power of prayer is truly amazing and the level of support has been nothing less than overwhelming. Especially moving was the number of children that have been praying. One of the Sisters of Notre Dame said something to Cindy and I before surgery, "Never underestimate the power of prayers from children; they have a direct line to God." They have been such a blessing.

All that we can say is thank you to everyone that has prayed and supported us. Whether it means anything or not, we feel as though I have traveled the cancer road for a short distance, at least mentally, and we will never be the same again. To say that it has been emotional would be an understatement.  We will now be advocates for early detection and awareness and as always, continued sincere prayer.

I  am humbled by the great friends and those we consider our family.  I will close now with my deepest gratitude. Thank you for this 2nd chance at life.

God Bless and Semper Fi

Billy (and Cindy looking over my shoulder)

Praise the LORD BROTHER, and WE all said AMEN !
'' GOD IS TOTALLY AWESOME '' !
                                GOD BLESS,
                                ARCHER2

All right!  That's great Bill!

it's amazing what prayer can do.every day from here on is gravy, enjoy

No words adequately describe the Love of God.

Gunney...semper fi...God loves Marines too...Bless you ...Marco#78...prayer of thanks..

Awesome Gunney!

God Bless