My Dad is my hero. He's also been one of my best friends as long as I can remember. I've looked up to him and admired him for so many reasons: his love of his family, life and his God, his work ethic, his sense of humor, etc.
And now there's the chance of losing him again. An excerpt from an email I just got from my mom...
"Way-back-when (childhood), something (toxins?) affected Tom's bone marrow. In '94, his marrow failed, began producing leukemic cells; they hit it with chemo, and that further assaulted his marrow, but 'cured' that leukemia. Now his marrow is failing again (Myelodsyplastic Syndrome); could be the original toxin contamination, or the chemo which saved his life in '94; or both. This failure will lead to Acute Myelogenous Leukemia again for Tom; it's not there yet, but it's getting close, and getting close fast. Hence, they will do a transplant as soon as they can get him into remission. The doctors HOPE the transplant will cure the original bone-marrow failure.
Pray for his strength and God's mercy: no mouth sores, no infections, no fevers, no nausea (he had no sores, no nausea in '94; he DID develop pneumonia and scared the heck out of everyone with that); pray for a quick remission, for a strong donor to be found; for financial peace-of-mind, for the job to be as supportive as they were before."
With the impending birth of our first child (which we don't know the sex yet...) we've settled on some gender specific names. The girl will be Kaitlyn Grace, and the boy will be Nolan Thomas... after my father. I'm praying that, if it is a boy, then the name will be in living honor of my dad and not in an honoring rememberance of him. I pray that my Dad will live to see his grandchild.
God this hurts.
