Today marked my three-year anniversary of having had a brain tumor removed from my left frontal lobe. My wife and I drove down to the hospital for my annual brain MRI to ensure that all of the cancerous cells that were in the tumor were either removed or zapped by my 18 months of oral chemotherapy. Praise God that after the forty-five minute exercise, we learned that I continue to be clear of any return of the tumor.

I often tell people that this brain tumor was one of the greatest things that have happened in my life. Prior to this, my faith had never been truly tried. When on the what I perceived as the brink of death, would I cling to Jesus Christ or would I be angry and run away? Would He be with me or would He abandon me and run away? Through this, I had such incredible peace about my life. I was prepared to die and knew because Jesus Christ was Lord in my life that I’d be fine, either way my life played out. That, my friends, is THE gift for me. To be prepared to die and to love to live.

Apparently, tumors have some sort of a hereditary trace to them and my paternal grandfather, Melvin,  died at a youg age from a very similar brain tumor. My dad was just eight (about the same age as my son at the time). My dad had two sisters and a newborn brother who was just six weeks old. I can’t imagine the joy and sorrow my grandmother must have experienced at the time. I also can’t imagine how being without a father impacted my dad’s life, and yet, he’s been a wonderful dad (not perfect, but none of us is, especially me, but I always knew he loved me.)

Recently when my family and I were back at my parent’s farm, we got together with one of my dad’s sisters and she handed me copies of letters that she had found about my grandfather’s brain tumor. The first, pictured here, appears to be someone’s hand-written notes on the death of my grandfather.

It says: “Immediate cause of death marked exema + compression of the brain. Due to: Huge glioma of the left frontal lobe of the brain.” Even as I write this, my eyes tear up as I remember sitting in the hospital bed three years ago at a slightly older age with the doctor telling me that I had a 3cm glioma on the left frontal lobe.

The second letter (one that I don’t think you’d ever see today) is from my grandfather’s doctor to my grandmother, offering her comfort and words of encouragement after the loss of her husband.

I have the photo images of today’s MRI but will upload those to Flickr in the coming days. It’s time for me to go to bed.

Personal Note: Some background for those of you who didn’t know me or didn’t hear the story. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor in July of 2005 when my wife discovered me having a grand mal seizure in the middle of the night. I was taken by ambulance to the local hospital emergency room where I had a preliminary diagnosis of a brain tumor. Here is a link to an assembly of the e-mails we sent during the first six months of my treatment.