Fantastical News!

A week and a half ago, my brother called to let me know our Uncle Rick had been diagnosed with cancer.  There was a spot on his neck he had nicked while shaving, and after it stopped gushing blood, a weird thing started to poke out of it.  He went to the doctor to have it checked, and it turned out to be a cancer often found in the kidneys.  On Wednesday, he went in for the MRI the doctor had scheduled, and they found a tumor on his kidney, approximately 2"x4" in size.  It is a contained tumor without any indication of cancer elsewhere in his system.  They caught it EXTREMELY early, thanks to the random lump on Uncle Rick's neck.  Apparently, in some very rare cases, some of the cancer cells break off and lodge elsewhere in the body.  This is what happened in this case, which is very fortunate since Uncle Rick wasn't displaying any signs of cancer or sickness whatsoever.  

Surgery is scheduled for April 2, and the doctors will remove the kidney with the tumor.  They anticipate that this will fully remove the cancer from his body and are not planning on him needing any chemo or radiation treatments.  I am extremely thankful that this was caught so early, and that Uncle Rick will have many more years to tell his stories and perform his stand-up for the family.  And I know that his siblings and my Aunt Madelen are even more thrilled with this news.  A world without Uncle Rick is a terrible thing to contemplate.