reporter: march 2010, bruce travels to new york city for the first cat scan of his lungs. just blocks from where he called linda to tell her he had cancer. on this day, the news was very different. hi, wivy. how are you? there s nothing there. it was a good day. it was a good call. reporter: still, it is hard not to worry. at any moment you can get a scan and a call that s not so good that sends you right back, and it s been one year. it hasn t been five years. and at that five year call you re cancer-free, then i think we can all start planning their wedding. bruce, that s perfect. reporter: the council is also standing by. every day, every moment, sure to come back.
astounded by their relationship. but again, it was that day in 2008 that jeopardized everything about the future he d imagined. bone cancer. a rare form of cancer. more specifically, osteosarcoma usually strikes people much younger than bruce. there s never a moment that is not shadowed in some way by that phone call. that, that cancer illness. the idea of dying is never that far away. just days after the diagnosis cape cod. bruce was consumed by a sense of loss, the man who d made a living by walking knew he might never walk again. might not live to see the twins grow up. his thoughts focused on them. i m a person who has tried in my life to dream undreamible dreams. who teaches you how to dream? who s the person tell them if they want to run a marathon,
he would be the general leading the fight against bruce s cancer. i hate the cancer. and i know it s not going to show my patient any mercy and i m not going to show it any mercy. when you looked at his films and after you examined him, did you already pretty much know what you were going to do when you left the room? i know that he needed chemotherapy and followed by surgery and a wide xigs which means removing the tumor and a rim of normal tissue around it. i was confident i could save his leg. heelly knew that saving the leg was critical to bruce s identity. he was, after all, the walking guy. but he also knew it wouldn t be easy. for months, these warriors pursued the battle on two fronts. while a titanium prothesis to
i can t i can t raise them alone. i need you for the girls. from the very beginning, it became the cancer versus the girls. right here. the twins. they were born on april 15th, 2005. tax day. that s baby a. the doctor joked, early feiler and latefeiler. eden and tiby. eden for the bible s perfect garden which bruce was looking for when linda learned she was pregnant. i love you. and tiby for the coastal island where bruce and linda were married. the girls were named to be advent which you arers like their father and his plan was to be there every step of the way. you girls like walking to school like this? yeah, exactly. with daddy. you do this every morning? yes. every day i m actually
replace the diseased thigh bone, bruce suffered through rounds of chemo to shrink the tumor. pneumonia, ear infections,pneumr infection, dozens of pounds lost, three hospitalizations. i. could just feel my body sort of slipping away. reporter: even as bruce was fighting for his life, the council of dads rallied around the family. some, daily phone calls. others, weekly visits. jeff had a different tactic. one postcard a day, every single day, for a year. i sent him postcards. to see them all like this, what s that like. i have to say, it s impressive to walk in here and see these postcards on the desk. i wanted bruce to know that i was with him. reporter: bruce needed those postcards. the hardest part was about to come. there are few days in your life you can work on tomorrow is one of them for me.