Email Update Sent January 11th

As a friend of our family, we wanted to let you know of some recent developments.

Last Wednesday Gary was diagnosed with cancer.  He met with his oncologist on Friday for the first time.  The cancer was found on his liver but they have determined it is not from the liver.  This means they have to quickly find out where it is coming from in order to know how to fight it (they fight different types of cancer with different forms of chemo).  They are doing a lot of tests on him to find this out.

This is a stage 4 cancer and it's a fast growing/moving cancer.  It is not curable but can go into remission which is the hope.  They are starting the chemo next week.  The doctor would not give us any kind of prognosis until they perform two rounds of chemo and see how the cancer reacts to it.

Dad has lost 20 pounds over the last few weeks and is in a lot of pain and very weak.  We are very concerned because he continues to get worse every day and has recently started hurting in other parts of his body.  If you could please keep him in your prayers it would mean a lot to us.

He is physically not up to taking any phone calls or visits, but he would appreciate an email if you wanted to send him one.  His email address is garybengtzen@gmail.com.