There was no hunting for me on Monday, November 5, because early that day I had met my oldest son, Brad, in Lampasas, to accompany him to visit his oncologist at the Lackland AFB hospital in San Antonio. A bright spot in our day was when we got a call at 8:00 AM from my youngest Son, Randy, at the ranch, that he has just scored on a nice Deer, a 11 pointer.
As we headed south, my thoughts returned to the day, November 11, 2006, when I rattled up a nice buck for Brad. He had the first shot that day since he had not shot a deer in almost three years. One of those years being spent in Iraq and the other eighteen months being taken up with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation to remove a Stage 4 tumor from his right tonsil.

Brad and his 30.06, Springfield, M1903 and the nice buck he shot last year.

His neck and throat had been cancer free for the past twenty-four months! Praise the Lord! But, he found out late last month that his cancer had metastasized into his lungs. This was quite a shock to him, our family and his Doctors who had told us that less than 5% of throat cancers ever spread to the lungs.

Currently Brad is getting along very good, in fact, we hunted together all day this past Saturday, which was opening day. He has appointments at M.D Anderson Clinic, in Houston, today and his treatment will begin.

My number one priority during his treatment will be to Brad. I will try to keep posting stories but may miss a post or 2 and I will try to visit as many other blogs as I can, but he comes first!

Brad’s faith in our Lord is extremely strong. On Monday he told me, “Dad, this is exciting! I will see one of 2 miracles. One miracle, being the Lord healing me and the other would be me being in Heaven and seeing our Lord!” Brad can’t be beaten with this attitude!

Please pray for Brad!