A Little Overwhelmed

To our Family in Christ,

Thank you so much for striving with us in prayer. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, seeing how serious a health problem my son Samuel had, seeing God working in wonderful ways. It's hard to fathom it all: one week we are trying to cure his diarrhea, the next major intestinal surgery is being performed to remove an 11.2 cm adenocarcinoma. One day the doctors are grim about the swollen lymph nodes that were removed, the next they are amazed that they are clean. Last night the oncologist told us that this tumor is rare in young people. In fact, though he works at one of Brazil`s leading cancer centers, Samuel now holds the record for being the youngest he's seen, 13 years old - Samuel loves breaking records.
Today at a medical conference, Samuel's case will be discussed with Brazil's leading cancer specialists. The suspicion is that he has a mutated PT53 gene - Samuel was excited about the possibility of being a mutant. So Samuel will have his DNA mapped out, and he could play a part in some groundbreaking research being done on the mutated PT53, that could possibly discover the cure for cancer. And to think, a few days ago we thought he just had worms.

How is Samuel taking all this? Pretty well, for sure! Edda tried to not worry him about the possibility of having cancer, but when a doctor let it slip, he rushed to Facebook to celebrate with the world the fact he is a cancer survivor (check out Samuel Joseph McKinney on Facebook). His mother nearly freaked when she read his comments.

What's next? Who knows, we may be auctioning off the movie rights to his story. But for now, we are thankful Samuel is cancer free, we are out of the hospital, he is recuperating nicely, and tomorrow we return to Joao Pessoa to our other two kids, and home and hopefully normal life.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers,

Joseph, Edda, and Samuel

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