Two weeks after he announced in an emotional episode on his daily radio podcast that he had developed a large tumor on his neck, Dan Bongino, 48, had surgery in a New York City hospital on Wednesday to remove the growth.  Prior to the surgery, Bongino continued to tweet to his 2.4 million Twitter followers his opinions on political topics and to retweet others as if nothing was amiss.  At 4:41 P.M. E.T. yesterday, ever optimistic, he tweeted that he was out of surgery but that the outlook was mixed.

Reflecting Bongino's popularity and his deep and loyal following, my article about his impending surgery at American Thinker on Monday in which I requested prayers for our patriot friend attracted an  extremely large readership and literally thousands of comments on social media promising prayers for Dan.  The article caught the attention of conservative leading lights Mark Levin and Sean Hannity — both of whom tweeted links to my article while Levin posted it on his Facebook, as well, where it generated over 20,000 comments and 4,300 shares.

Early on Monday morning, Bongino replied to my tweet, writing, "Thank you for your prayers and kind words."

Lymphoma is a cancer that arises in the body's lymphatic system. It is regarded as treatable and typically survivable.  Medical News Today summarized the most common, state-of-the-art treatments, which include:

·      Biologic therapy: This is a drug treatment that stimulates the immune system to attack the cancer. The drug achieves this by introducing living microorganisms into the body.

·    Antibody therapy: A medical professional inserts synthetic antibodies into the bloodstream. These respond to the cancer's toxins.

·    Chemotherapy: A healthcare team administers aggressive drug treatment to target and kill cancer cells.

·    Radioimmunotherapy: This delivers high powered radioactive doses directly into cancerous B cells and T-cells to destroy them.

·    Radiation therapy: A doctor may recommend this type of therapy to target and destroy small areas of cancer. Radiation therapy uses concentrated doses of radiation to kill cancerous cells.

·    Stem cell transplantation: This can help restore damaged bone marrow following high dose chemotherapy or radiation therapy.

·    Steroids: A doctor may inject steroids to treat lymphoma.

·    Surgery: A surgeon may remove the spleen or other organs after the lymphoma has spread. However, a cancer specialist, or oncologist, will more commonly request surgery to obtain a biopsy.

To this point, Bongino has confirmed only that "it looks like cancer."  We can still hope and pray that it is not.  And if it is cancer, our prayers for him are clearly needed now more than ever.

Studies have confirmed that a positive outlook and a "fighting spirit" benefit the person who is dedicated to surviving his cancer.  It should be obvious to anyone who has followed Dan Bongino's career that he is a man possessed of not only a positive attitude, but a classic fighting spirit.

God bless you, Dan.  Hundreds of thousands of your friends and supporters, most of whom have never met you, will be praying for you.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran journalist who writes about politics, media, popular culture, and health care for American Thinker and other publications.  He also appears in the media, including recently as a contributor to BBC World News.  Peter's website is http://peter.media.  His YouTube channel is here.  For updates on his work, follow Peter on Twitter at @pchowka.