The dreaded "C" word

IS FOR.................


I just found out that my grandpa (my dad's dad) has prostate cancer. We are not sure of the severity of it at this point though I assume they caught it pretty early. He is going to see the oncologist tomorrow to figure out a course of battle.
My grandpa, like myself, has numerous health issues already. He has already had cancer two times, both of those being lung cancer. He told me a few years ago that he started smoking cigarettes when he was eight years old. He grew up in the deep, dark hills of North Carolina where they grew tobacco to sell in Winston-Salem.
Grandpa (we call him Papaw) has had a rough road having a bypass surgery for one of the veins (or artery, not sure) in his leg. This was probably the worst surgery because they cut him from his sternum to below his belly button and down each leg to place some sort of "T" mechanism to let blood flow through or around a blocked artery. I can't remember all of the details at the moment.
A couple of years later, Grandpa started coughing up blood so he went to the doctor. There we found out that he had lung cancer from all of those years of smoking. He had a little over 50% of his right lung taken out in that surgery. A few years later he started coughing up blood again. After another trip to the doctor and some more blood work, it was discovered that the cancer had returned in his left lung. They took out about 25% of his left lung in that surgery. He still has trouble breathing and over the past couple of years has started developing a touch of emphysema that has really affected his breathing. Lately I have noticed that he is breathing very hard even walking from his house to my parent's house which is just across the street.
I talked to him for just a minute before I left mom and dad's and he seemed pretty shaken up. I am trying to muster up the courage to go back over there to talk to him. In the few minutes I did talk to him he said that he was pretty scared. The doctors have told him since his last surgery that he probably isn't strong enough to do any kind of chemotherapy. We do not know the options that are available but hopefully the doctors will give us some hope.
Cancer is a scary word for me being a transplant recipient who is on immunosuppressants. Each time I go to the doctor they tell me that there is virtually no patient with a higher risk for colon cancer than one with Ulcerative Colitis and a liver transplant caused by PSC. That word is constantly on the fringes of my mind and occasionally on the forefront. The one positive about my position is that, like Papaw, they are constantly on the look for a change in anything so it should be caught early. Hopefully the regular checkups for Papaw will prove to be beneficial and leave him some options about what he wants to do.
When I left over there he said to be praying for him and I will definitely follow through on my promise to him. I am asking those of you that read this to be praying for him too. Even when we can't change things, and the doctor's have given up hope, our prayer's can still make a difference.

Lindsey, one of my best friends, has a grandpa who needs your prayers as well. He is having a hard time. I am not sure of the details but I know he has been in the hospital for at least a week. Mom and I saw Sally, Lindsey's mom yesterday at lunch and she said that he is in serious need of prayers as well. I am sure there are a million others that need our prayers too.