My Friend Mack Riggs Has Cancer

Please join me in supporting Mack Riggs' prayer team during his treatment for prostate cancer.

I received the following E-mail from him today.

Mack Riggs, mackriggs@earthlink.net


Hello,

I am putting together a prayer team for support during my treatment for prostate cancer. The fact that I have been diagnosed with cancer is the bad news. The good news is that it is early stage cancer with a high probability for a complete cure.

Several good options are available for the treatment of early stage prostate cancer. After extensive research into treatment options, I have chosen proton beam therapy due to its excellent cure rate and its low risk of short and long-term side effects. No surgery for me. The closest Proton Treatment Center is in Jacksonville and I will be receiving 5 treatments per week for about 8 weeks - beginning in about a month. I praise God for identifying the cancer early and for guiding us to the University of Florida Proton Treatment Institute (UFPTI) in Jacksonville for the best treatment possible for my situation.

Respond by email if you would like to be on my prayer support team. I plan to send out 2 or 3 email updates per month along with a couple of key prayer needs. I lost my email address book during a recent hard drive crash, so feel free to forward this if you know of someone else who might be interested.

Current prayer needs are (1) for good results during 3 days of additional tests and preparation on March 10-12 at UFPTI, and (2) that we find God's choice of a place to stay in Jax during the 2 months of treatment.

One more thing - if you are an adult male living in the USA you should gain a fundamental knowledge of prostate cancer as you have a 1 in 6 chance of getting it during your life time, and that risk is on the increase. Those with a history of prostate cancer in the family have risks of 33% to 90% depending on the number of close relatives with prostate cancer. But be encouraged, early detection on the cancer is easily done during annual physicals, and like I said, the chances of a complete cure of early stage cancer is very good, through a variety of treatment options. (Surgery is no longer the best option for many men - although your urologist will probably recommend surgery since that is his speciality.) And for you younger men, a pill for prostate cancer is under development. For those who are interested, I have prepared a little more info for you on the attachment, including links to appropriate web sites.

I wish I had done this kind of preparation years ago as I could have caught my cancer even earlier. Call me if you wish to talk more about early detection and treatment options.

I hope you will join our prayer team for the next few months, but I understand if you are led otherwise. I want the choice of the team members to be a God thing.

Blessings in Christ Jesus,
Mack