Post for a Friend

On Monday April 28, 2008 we received very bad news that a family member of ours, Mark, was diagnosed with Lung Cancer at age 53. I wanted to mark this day for the purpose of remembering important dates and milestones in our lives. As I get older, I lose track of what happened in what year.

We don't know Mark's prognosis yet, we should know more this week. I also included a picture I took of Mark at his 50th Birthday Party three years ago.

My mother attended his 50th party with us, and she died two months later after a heart repair operation. She had no idea that within two months she would be dead, and Mark would be diagnosed with a deadly disease within three years.

Update: (May 9th). My 44th birthday came yesterday, and Carol made a great dinner of homemade Manacotti, meatballs, garlic sticks from Petty's Meat Market, and a dessert of cannoli, which is one of my favorites.

Today we heard about Mark's condition, he has Stage 3 lung cancer, and a lump under his arm which means the cancer is in his lymph nodes. Not good.

Update: (July 1, 2008) Basically, 64 days later and Mark died today. He was rushed to the hospital from his job at Percepta, with a lot of blood loss. I don't know if he ever regained consciousness, but he died at around 5:00PM tonight.

53 years old, stage 3B lung cancer, dead. Think about that the next time you reach for that cigarette.