Recently in Fighting cancer and heart failure Category

God bless you.

For the last 19 months, I have been asking God to either heal my sick heart or to

replace it with a healthier one through a heart transplant. He had already healed a brain

tumor, which was almost instantly declared benign. And He is applying the finishing

touches to healing me of prostate cancer.

Then on Monday, Nov. 2, 2009, after undergoing two weeks of extensive tests,

interviews and reviews of my medical records, I was approved to be a "status 2"

candidate for a heart transplant at the world-renown, highly-acclaimed non-profit Mayo

Clinic's main facility in Rochester, Minn.

Dr. Alfredo L. Clavell, veteran Mayo cardiologist, called me with the good news after

he and a dozen other doctors, including cardiac surgeons, a urologist, endocrinologist and

psychiatrist, had convened to consider the latest patch of patients applying for organ

transplantation.

Originally, I had wanted my procedure to be done in my Chicago hometown because

of its many conveniences with my family having lived here for 41 years and with the

presence of friends and relatives who could help my wife, Joyce, my primary caregiver,

during the critical stage of my recovery. The Chicago operation also would have been

cheaper in terms of post-operative expenses.

Unfortunately, Chicago doctors, I talked to, felt my prostate cancer diagnosis of

2008 kept me at least two more years away from heart transplant candidacy, despite the

fact that my radiation brachytherapy treatment on May 21, 2008, has since dropped my

PSA from 5.5 to .83.

Doctors at the University of Chicago Medical Center, for example, require me to have

a heart pump implanted until my PSA drops to a level they consider acceptable for heart

transplant candidacy. But nobody there would tell me what that PSA level must be when I

asked for it.

At the Mayo Clinic, however, Dr. Lance Mynderse, a urologist, determined that my

rate of progress from the brachytherapy places me in the 99th percentile of patients

expected to live at least 15 years after the that treatment for prostate cancer.

"You are a lot more likely to die from congestive heart failure or a heart attack than

from prostate cancer," Dr. Mynderse said.

In short order, the cardiologists and cardiologists at Mayo agreed with Mynderse.

Dr. Clavell added that different hospitals and doctors have different opinions on how

aggressively to treat prostate cancer, even when it is early-stage and localized as mine

was said to be after a biopsy by Dr Glenn Gerber at the UCMC.

"Prostate cancers are among the slower-growing cancers," Dr. Clavell said. "And

our knowledge and treatment of the disease have greatly improved."

Thus, since my chances of getting a heart transplant are much quicker at Mayo,

where I could maybe even have to undergo only one serious surgery, the heart transplant,

instead of two, I have chosen to go with Mayo. Moreover, Mayo is one of the top hospitals

in the world in terms of across-the-board medical efficiency.

I was extremely impressed with the thorough and speedy care I got from Mayo from

the very start. They approached and explored me as a vast, integrated team

concentrating collectively on every area of my health to make sure that their investment

of somebody else's heart in me would not be a vain one. I had to be sick enough to need

it, healthy enough to receive it and committed and disciplined enough to make the best

use of it with a heathful and healthy lifestyle.

At the Mayo, I was examined and tested by a dozen doctors specializing in

cardiology, cardiac surgery, endocrinology, urology, neurology, infectious disease,

psychiatry and general surgery.

I am especially thankful to the invaluable assistance and intervention from former

Sting owner Lee B. Stern, a 60-year member of the Chicago Board of Trade, and of

James Hodge, a Mayo executive insider and longtime friend of Stern's. Yes, it pays to

have friends in high places.

I am also thankful to the University of Chicago Medical Center and Northwestern

Memorial Hospital for providing medical records of their treatments of me to help bring

the Mayo team up to date on my overall state of health. UCMC's Dr. Valluvan

Jeevanandam performed a triple bypass on me on Feb. 14, 2001, and those grafts

remain open. Northwestern's Dr. Mark Ricciardi finally brought my runaway high blood

pressure under control and performed two stentings when there were clogging problems

in my main arteries in 2003 and 2005. UCMC's Dr. Allen Anderson also prescribed

additional medicines to help my heart successfully endure the wait for a heart transplant.

The Mayo has given me and my wife a week or two to prepare for my admission into

the hospital there for transplant preparations that will include the administrations of

medications and the possible implantation of a defibrillator (ICD) or even a heart pump if

my heart worsens while I await a healthier heart. Doctors feel that my blood type, B

positive, may affect a shorter wait.

I am presently on medical leave from the Sun-Times to undergo this treatment, which,

doctors say, is a best option for long-term survival. But I will keep you informed of my

progress as long as the Sun-Times permits me. This is a story that needs to be told to

it very end. It is a source of tremendous encouragement to countless people in need as

they struggle with their health issues and life problems.

I am in no pain or ongoing discomfort whatsoever. I simply have a weaken, diseased

heart that prevents me from doing much before fatigue and shortness of breath stops me

and has me vulnerable to a potentially fatal heart attack. I am still on medications, taking

some 25 pills a day to help keep my functioning at minimum efficiency and productivity.

But these medicines appear to have reached their limit.

God is still large and in charge. He could still move in the twinkling of an eye and

heal me to where I won't need a transplant. But receiving a heart transplant does not

discount God's healing powers. Any help we get from doctors and other scientists comes

through them but from God, in whom we all live and move and have our being.

God bless you.

God bless you.

Since doctors told me 17 months ago that I have end-stage congestive heart failure,

prostate cancer and a brain tumor, not one day has passed without me thinking about

death and seeing myself dying from one of these serious illnesses.

Yes, I'm still praying to be healed of these sicknesses. I'll never give up and I thank

all of you prayer partners for continuing to touch and agree with me on the desires of my

heart for those healings.

At the same time, because I am a practical man, as well as a preaching man of

faith, I'm not sitting idly by, waiting for some cataclysmic healing to drop from the sky.

Rather, I take about 30 pills a day for these illnesses. And when pill-taking time

comes, I spread the proper pills out on a table or counter and I remember why I am

swallowing each one. I take them because I am a very sick man who wants to live and I'm

doing my best to take full advantage of every blessing available to keep me alive.

The deaths of celebrities this year remind us again and again that no earthling is

going to get out of life alive. While the death of Senator Edward Kennedy sadden all

men of good will, it's not too surprising because we knew that he was had been fighting

brain cancer for a year. Plus, he was 77 years old.

Neither was it that shocking when historian John Hope Franklin died at age 94,

network news anchorman Walter Cronkite died at 92, actor Karl Malden died at 97,

humantarian Eunice Kennedy Shriver died at 88, former defense secretary Robert

McNamara died at 93 or guitarist Les Paul died at 94. These dears souls were up in

years.

Famed Michael Jackson, one of my all-time favorite entertainers, shocked us all

when he died young at age 50. But the circumstances of his death now help us to

better understand why he died so young.

Meantime, while I am no longer young at age 66, I am not really old, either, by

today's standards that include the best medical care so far ever available in human

history. Even better, I am blessed to be gainfully employed and have access to this care.

If this care had been enjoyed by my immediate family members, my oldest sister, Mrs.

Maude Lee Burrell, would not have died at age 66. Or my father Rev. A.D. Banks at age

64, my youngest brother Hansel at age 51, my mother at age 43, my premature

twin sons or my five other sisters and brothers at infancy.

Like all of you, I want to live a longer, meaningful and enjoyable life. But I'm no

longer afraid to die like I was when I was a boy. Death doesn't bother me because I've

already lived 66 sensational years. Death doesn't bother me because I've already seen

three daughters become distinguished ladies with college degrees, including one with

a Christian husband and four children and another a Christian single mother with one

marvelous son.

I'm not afraid to die because I have already enjoyed many other priceless

blessings.

I have seen, hugged and kissed five grandchildren.

I have known the fiery love and sweet companionship of Joyce, my high school

sweetheart who has been a perfect wife for more than 41 years.

I have been blessed to work my way up from eating neckbones to eating T-bones.

I've been blessed to rise from a Mississippi cotton picker earning $3 a day to

being sports reporter for this newspaper and a preacher earning almost 100 times that

much.

I casted one of the votes that elected America's first black President.

I marched in civil rights demonstrations with Dr. Martin Luther King.

I was the first person in my immediate family to get a college degree.

I've preached in more than 100 Chicago churches alone, plus churches in Kansas,

Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania,

Michigan, Arkansas and California during the last 57 years.

I've set foot in 35 American states and I have vacationed in England, Mexico,

France, Germany, Holland and Canada. I've been mightily blessed.

But the main reason I'm not afraid to die is because I have a savior in Jesus Christ.

And because He is my savior, I have a permanent home for my soul when this life is

over.

If I had my choice, I'd rather die quick and easy, preaching God's gospel in some

pulpit or wherever. Because of poor medical care and racial prejudice, my mother, Sarah

Lorane Sanders Banks, died suffering excruciating pain over several days after being

poisoned by a dead infant she was too weak to deliver.

I was 11 years old at that time. They called me home from running a revival in Cape

Gerardeau, Mo. She was dying in a hospital bed in Mt. Bayou, Miss., an all-Black

town and an all-Black hospital. I got there just in time to see her smile through incredible

pain a day before she died. I was mad at the world. Especially the white world and the

Mississippi racism that conspired to deny her better medical care. I've grown beyond that

rage. But I still hate racism and I still hurt when I think of how my mother died so young.

Yes, I want to live. I have so much to live for. I have loved ones to live for. I have

causes to live for. I want to do what I can to make this world better for everybody and to

help suffering people everywhere.

I want to live badly. But because of my faith, I declare unto you all that death, for me,

is a win-win situation.

Doctors still tell me that I need a heart pump or a heart transplant or both if I am

to live out the year. Daily pains are making me agree with them, unless God heals me

first.

I have become a reluctant daily companion of unwelcomed pain. All kinds of pain.

Stinging pains. Burning pains. Aching pains. Acute pains. Dull pains. My arms and legs

are growing weaker and my finger tips scream, through stinging sensations, for their fair

share of circulated blood.

Three weeks ago, I underwent a back surgery to relieve me from extreme pains in

my lower back. Pains persists in my left groin and left legs. But I am blessed to be able

to endure these pains and to enjoy far more positives than negatives. I am still able to

preach and work. I am still able to encourage others to fight for their lives. And I say

unto you, sisters and brothers, fight. Fight for your lives. Fight for your love. Fight to

love and be loved. Fight for the good of all mankind. Fight for every breath and for every

heartbeat until.........

God bless you.

God bless you.

Spending one's birthday in the hospital recovering from surgery is no happy thought

and no springboard toward a happy birthday.

But that's my lot since I undergo back surgery Monday morning (Aug. 10) at the

University of Chicago Hospital, where UCMC neuro-surgeon Dr. Frederick Brown will

perform a lumbar laminectomy on me.

Then the next day, Aug. 11, I'll hopefully celebrate my 66th birthday.

Not with a party, which I have never had. But I'll celebrate it recovering from that

back surgery. And the happiest part of that birthday will be simply surviving a successful

surgery with as little pain as possible.

After a hopefully short recovery, unless God gives my heart the miracle healing we

have been praying for, I will then undergo my most serious surgery yet. I will have a

Heartmate2, a left-ventricular-assist-device, implanted to desperately improve my blood

circulation.

My weakened heart, afflicted with end-stage congestive heart failure, has been

doing a progressively poor job of pumping life-sustaining blood throughout my blood and

that has resulted in a slow-motion death for me. I am experiencing more and more

stiffness, pain and weakness in my fingers and hands, toes and feet and joints.

The bad back has simply made matters worse by preventing me from standing or

walking longer than a minute or two. And the increasing sedentary life is no friend to the

exercise and therapy crucial to improving or preserving the health of my heart.

I have done a lot of study on the heart pump. A very good source of knowledge

and encouragement has come from a new friend named Robert Winston, a 48-year-old

Cabrini Green native who wore a Heartmate2 for a year before receiving his new heart

a month ago at the University of Chicago.

Robert's story is very intriguing, exciting and encouraging. At trimming down some

100 pound from being what he calls a sick, 297-pounder, his congestive heart failure

worsened and resulting in him collapsing into a coma before being rushed to the

hospital and given an implanted Heartmate2 as a bridge to a much-needed, life-saving

heart transplant.

"That pumped saved my life and made me feel better than I had felt in years,"

Winston told me. "The next thing I noticed after getting the pump was that my toenails

and fingernails started growing again. I also started getting back strength in my legs, my

hands, my whole body. It was difficult to adjust to at first, having to depend upon

battery packs and a home console machine plugged into the wall to keep me alive. I

couldn't sleep on my stomach or takes baths or any long trips. But when you realize that

your very life will depend upon those changes, you learn to adapt to them sooner or

later because you have no other choice if you want to live.

"And my main drive was the fact that I wasn't ready to die and didn't want to die.

I loved living and I had a lot of my family, especially my three sons, depending upon me.

Also, the fact the pump made me feel so much better made it easier for me to put up

with the negatives and inconveniences because they were such a little price to pay to

stay alive."

After getting his new heart from a donor half his age, Winston says he so far has

noticed little improvement in the way he felt after having the pump implanted in him.

This really says volumes about the benefits provided by the pump. Obviously, the

heart transplant, if successful and compatible with the recipient, is the better option

because the patient once again is more mobile and self-sufficient. He no longer has

to live being powered by and tethered to a battery pack or an AC console through a

drive line connecting to the D-battery-sized motor that is attached to his heart and

that provides a constant flow blood that no longer includes a heartbeat.

With my health deteriorating, I desperately need the pump and am praying for

a successful and timely implantation.

God bless you.

God bless you.

I've just finished the worst vacation of my life with my wife Joyce because I was in

almost constant back pain that kept me from standing or walking for more than a minute

at a time.

But thanks to Thursday's approval by my cardiologist, Dr. Allen Anderson of the

University of Chicago Medical Center, I have been cleared to go through with my

back surgery (a lumbar laminectomy) on Monday morning at the University of Chicago

Medical Center, where Dr. Frederick Brown with perform the operation.

Because of my high risk as an end-staged congestive heart failure patient, who is

also fighting prostate cancer, I had to get an OK from Dr. Allen. His examination of me

on Thursday yielded two pieces of good news:

1. Dr. Allen examined me and concluded that my heart is strong enough to undergo

the operation, which will be done under general anesthesia. But he suggests that I remain

a couple of days afterward so that the UCMC medical staff can make sure there are no

immediate cardiac complications, or any complications for that matter. Upon recovery,

the next move probably will be the implantation of a heart pump, most likely the

Heartmate 2.

2. My PSA, a barometer of prostate cancer, is now at a fantastic low of .83. We

discovered this from the blood test that Dr. Anderson ordered. All other vitals are

also good. But this is the first time I can ever remember having a PSA under 1.0. This

means my prostate cancer continues in remission and is progressively dissolving.

Thank you, Jesus!!!

Yes, with my brain tumor being healed and declared benign 15 months ago, my

prostate cancer is also being healed, but more slowly.

Now, to get my back straight so that I can stand, walk and exercise better

and strengthen my diseased heart. With so many things wrong with me medically, I just

wanted to get at least one more vacation out of the way before my next rounds of

surgeries because one never knows the exact outcome.

Anyway, who schedules a vacation to undergo surgery or to recover from sickness?

Thank God for a union and a labor contract that provides for workers to take sick leaves

and not be punished for being sick or for seeking and receiving treatment.

Still, the last place one wants to suffer pain is on a vacation with a loved one in a

beautiful setting. Joyce, my wife of 41 years, and I spent five days in resplendent

Vancouver, overlooking its panoramic harbor, and 11 days in sun-splashed Orlando. But I

was refined to either sitting or lying down most of the time.

When we went grocery shopping, I rode the electric wheel chair, which made me feel

ashamed as I rode while my darling wife walked. I didn't feel like a man even through

people flashed smiles of compassion at me, assuring me that they understood my

predicament.

So now it's on to my back surgery. I thank you for your continued prayers in

advance. But thank God, I not only have you praying for me, which is great. I have my

own prayer telephone in my bosom. And I am using it to pray for myself, too.

God bless you.

God bless you.

Within the next two weeks, I will have either a heart pump or a repaired back or both.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

When I first discovered 15 months ago that I had end-stage congestive heart

failure, a brain tumor and prostate cancer, I prayed for God to heal me instantly and

completely of all three.

Many of you Christian sisters and brothers joined me by prayerfully touching and

agreeing with me and the desires of my heart.

God blessed me first with the brain tumor being declared benign.

God blessed me again to put my prostate cancer in remission with the aid of

brachetherapy or the implantation of radiation seeds by Dr. Brian Moran of the Chicago

Prostate Cancer Center.

God also blessed me to retard the deterioration of my heart through additional

medications prescribed by Dr. Allen Anderson of the University of Chicago Medical

Center, where Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam has been the chief cardiac surgeons for years

It was Dr. Jeevanandam who performed a triple bypass on me Feb. 14, 2001.

When I was hospitalized 15 months ago, Dr. Jeevanandam suggested that I have

a Left-Ventricle Assist Device implanted as soon as possible because my mitral valve

and left ventricle were irreparably damaged and that my heart was not pumping blood

sufficiently and was getting progressively weaker.

I chose to keep praying and waiting for a cataclysmic healing of my heart, which

needed a heart transplant. My wife, daughters, sisters and brothers and close friends

asked to get the pump because it is said to be my best medical option to extending my

life until I can get a new heart.

After my first 10 days of vacation, where I have done mostly nothing but rest, the

signs now are clearer than ever that my failing heart needs help before my bad back.

I am already scheduled to undergo a back operation, specifically a lumbar laminectomy,

to be performed by Dr. Frederick Brown, neuro-surgeon at the University of Chicago

Medical Center, on Aug. 10.

For some seven months, severe stenosis issues in my lower back has kept me from

standing or walking for longer than a few minutes. Since Dr. Anderson has assured me

the back problem was not related to poor blood circulation, I decided to undergo the

back surgery first.

But painful aches, stiffness and occasional swelling in my fingers, feet, joints and

quick fatigue suggest to me that I might be better served having the heart surgery

first. That's why I am firing off an e-mail tp my doctors today asking their advice.

I will keep you posted as my fight continues.

God bless you.

God bless you.

I'd like to use this blog entry to share with you a comment from Elizabeth, one of my

recent blog readers, and my response to her.

Here is what she wrote:

"You so-called 'Christians' are contradictory. You claim not to be afraid to die, but yet you

fight tooth and nail to do anything to live another day longer, knowing full well, it's

useless. If you are such a believer, then why don't you stop all your treatment and leave it

in His hands?"

BANKS' RESPONSE: "Us Christians so contradictory" because we try to help

ourselves as well as believe in and pray to God?

You are so wrong and off-base, Elizabeth.

We know that God is all-powerful and that He has the whole world in His hands.

Right?

Well, maybe you don't believe that either. But we "so-called Christians" do.

We also believe that in God we live, move and have our being. At the same time, the

earth is the Lord's and the FULNESS thereof, the world and THEY that dwell therein.

Well, among "the FULNESS" of the world and among "THEY that dwell therein" are

doctors, lawyers, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, teachers, preachers, police, firemen,

bread, water, medicine, sun, rain, dirt, plows, seeds, etc. You name it.

Now, the final outcome of anything is in God's hands because He not only has the

last word, He is the Word. But when I'm hungry, I do my best to get some of that bread in

His hands to eat so that I won't starve to death.

Only the fool sits down in the middle of life and does not try to do anything to better

himself or to use the common sense that God has given him. That's why when my

drains are stopped up, I call the plumber. When I have an electrical problem, I call

the electrician. When my car breaks down, I call or take it to an auto mechanic. When

there is a fire in my house and I can't put it out by myself, I call the fire department. When

I'm sick, I seek the help of a doctor. When I have a legal problem, I seek a lawyer. And

when a criminal tries to invade my home, I call the police, if I have time to do so, or I try

to defend my family myself by any means necessary.

Now, the plumber, electrician, mechanic, fireman, doctor, lawyer, police and all the

other craftsman of human society are all part of the "FULNESS" of this world and "THEY

that dwell therein."

Just look at yourself, Elizabeth. You didn't leave criticizing us so-called Christians

"in God's hands." Neither did you leave this task in the hands of the devil, who is forever

a liar, a murderer and a false accuser of the brethren and wants us all dead.

Rather, propelled by your probable disbelief in God, and your apparent disrespect for

His redeemed, you took it upon yourself to use your eyes to read this blog, you used your

heart and mind to misjudge us "so-called Christians," and then you used your fingers to

e-mail me what I believe is an off-base criticism of "us Christians."

Well, Elizabeth, I don't know who you worship or if you worship anybody. But those of

us who worship God in spirit and in truth do know that it is at least common sense to do

our best and then trust God for the rest.

Yes, that's right. There's nothing wrong and everything right in us trying to use what

God has already given us before we ask Him to give us anything else.

And, yes, we "so-called Christians" are going to try to do all we can on our own

behalf to live as long and as well as we possibly can. But at the same time, we try to

take full advantage of God's invitation to ask so that it shall be given, to seek so that we

may find and to knock so that the door hall be opened unto us. We take full advantage

of His invitation for us to come unto Him when we labor and are heavy ladened so that

He will give us rest.

God bless you, Elizabeth, for being honest. But I invite and urge you also to seek

the Lord while He may be found and to call upon Him while He is so near. Most of all,

if you haven't done so, I urge you to confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and to

believe with your heart that He died on Calvary's cross one Friday for all your sins or

imperfections and shortcomings and then arose from the dead the following Sunday

morning with all power in heaven and earth given by God unto Him.

When you do those things, Elizabeth, you will be saved and will become one of us

"so-called Christians" where the joy of the Lord is your strength and where you will

bless the Lord at all times so that His praise shall continually be in your mouth.

God bless you.

God bless you.

On Saturday night, I covered the 10th championship victory of a Chicago sports team

when the Chicago Slaughter defeated the Ft. Wayne Freedom to win the Continental

Indoor Football League title in the Sears Centre, a 10,000-seat arena in suburban west

Chicago.

In my 37 years of writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, I don't know of any other

sports reporter in the city who can claim that milestone. First, I covered the Sting and

the two North American Soccer League championships that they won in 1981 and 1984.

Next, I covered the Bulls when they, led by Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and

coach Phil Jackson, won six NBA championships in 1991-93 and 1996-98.

Next, I covered the Chicago Rush, when it won the 2006 Arena Football League

championship. Then Saturday, the Slaughter's win enabled me to enjoy a tie, of sorts,

with Jackson, who, two weeks ago, won his NBA-record 10th NBA title when the Los

Angeles Lakers beat the Orlando Magic to win their fourth title under him.

What a proud milestone!

But on tomorrow (Tuesday, June 30), I will celebrate a milestone much prouder

and more profound than my being the lead beat man covering 10 championships won

by Chicago pro sports teams. I will celebrate my 41st wedding anniversary with my

wife and high school sweetheart, Joyce.

Thank you Jesus!!!!!!!

Yes, it was 41 years, two deceased infant twin sons, three living daughters, two

deceased fathers, three deceased brothers, one deceased sister, seven surgeries, five

grandchildren, 10 jobs and 155 pounds ago (all totals cumulative) that Joyce and I

married each other at 3125 North 29th St., Kansas City, Kan., a modest, wooden-frame,

three-bedroom house in which her family has lived for some 50 years and where her

mother, Mrs. Emma Wooten-Searcy, 87, still stubbornly lives to this very day.

We didn't have a lavish church wedding because neither we nor our parents

could afford one. Neither did we see the need for one or for any reception afterward.

We spent our first night in a Kansas City (Mo.) hotel that no longer stands, then spent

our honeymoon in Denver and Estes Park, Colo., and we're still married and in love.

We first met each other in the spring of 1961 at Sumner High School in Kansas

City. Kan. I was a senior and she was a sophomore. At that time, she weighed about

70 pounds and I weighed roughly 140 pounds. Boy, were we slim and slender in those

days! But over the course of time, good living and having and raising children can

round out the world's most svelte lovers.

I thank God for my wife and for the longevity of our marriage. Strong, long

marriages are part of my family's tradition. My mother, Sarah Loraine Sanders-Banks,

and my father, Rev. A. D. Banks, Sr., were married for some 26 years before the death

of my mother ended it when I was 11. My oldest sister, Mrs. Maude Lee Burrell, was

married to her childhood sweetheat, N. L. Burrell, for 47 years before she died in 2001.

My next oldest sister, Lue Kuicious Banks-Brown, has been married to her childhood

sweetheart, Sylvester Brown, for 51 years. My younger brother, Rev. Jimmie Lee Banks,

has been married to his high school sweetheart, Alice Yates Banks, for 44 years.

Yes, we both met our future wives at the distinguished Sumner High.

Marriage isn't easy and marriage isn't always happiness and perfect agreement.

But marriage is good. The two things that have most preserved my marriage to Joyce

are our faith in God and our love for each other.

I liked Joyce the very first time I saw her. As usual, she and her late brother, Roscoe,

Jr., came to school earlier than everybody else every morning because her father drove

them there on his way to work. I arrived early only because, as Sumner's student council

president, I was invited to attend a Kiwannis Club breakfast with other school officers

and we were to arrive early to be taken to the breakfast by a school administrator.

Joyce radiated the beauty of an angel and I liked her, not necessarily loved her,

from the first time I saw her because I thought she was so, so pretty. I introduced

myself to her and shortly thereafter tried to be her boyfriend. But when she refused to

say much when I'd call her on the telephone, I told her I was quitting her and didn't

want to be bothered anymore because I felt that her refusal to say much meant that she

really didn't like me. What stupid me failed to realize, however, was that she was very,

very shy and that she had never had a boyfriend before or had even ever been kissed.

But a couple of weeks after I quit her, she skipped lunch on day and waited in the

hallway outside my history class, taught by Mr. Edward Beasley. She had two very

important questions to ask and a request to make.

When I came out, there she was as sweet, quiet and as pretty as could be.

"Hi," she said, rather nervously.

"Hi," I said back to her.

"Do you have a girlfriend yet?" she asked me.

"Naw," I said.

"Can I be your girlfriend," she asked.

"Yes, sure," I said.

"Then would you call me tonight?" she asked.

"Okay," I said.

She still didn't talk much. But if she hadn't come back to me, I probably would

have tried to hit on her again because she was so nice and pretty. She just beat me to

the punch. We courted each other for seven years. Since I didn't have a car, most of our

dates were on the front porch or in the living room of her home at 3125 N. 29th St.

We rode the bus to movies and to dinner at downtown cafeteria. It took us just a

couple of months to really fall in love with each another. That love has lasted to this

very day and will continue until we relocate to heaven.

Today (Monday, June 29), I have to go to the University of Chicago Hospital to

undergo tests and preparations for back surgery. Then tomorrow, my wife and I will

celebrate our anniversary.

So let me take this opportunity to say before the whole world, or at least that part

that is reading this Sun-Times blog online: I love you Joyce and happy 41st wedding

anniversary baby.

God bless you all.