Frank the Tumor

There is so much spiteful political mess going on these days, what with the "wolves", the retired generals, crying out for Rumsfeld's resignation---and that would be the first chink in the Bush administration's armor---Moussaoui's trial, and the trouble in Chad, I thought I would talk about something simpler and more heartening. An 11-year-old boy, David Dingman-Grover, of Sterling, Virginia, had a grapefruit sized tumor at the base of his brain, that was causing him blindness and headaches. The boy applied the name Frank to it after the monster Frankenstein, which once upon a time frightened him. Frank the tumor even got national attention when David's mother auctioned off "Frank Must Die" bumper-stickers on eBay, to pay for his medical costs. But wonder of wonders, thanks to modern medicine, chemotherapy and radiation shrank Frank to the size of "a peach pit", and then they operated to take it out, very successfully. David's brain is now cancer-free, though he needs to be monitored for at least five more years. Saying he feels great, he said, quote, "I don't think about it at all. I think mostly, like, just getting on with my life, getting on with the next day." A wonderful way to look at life, David. More of us should follow suit.