"KENNEWICK, Wash. – On his tiny farm, Terry Wattenburger admired a new cycle of life emerging in his backyard: A blue-eyed American Paint foal grazed next to its mother and a fuzzy, multicolored chick chirped and hopped through the grass.

The baby animals help the 50-year-old grandfather take his mind off the uncertainty of his own life.

Wattenburger is not the man he used to be. In photographs from a few years back, he looked like a football player, standing 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 220 pounds. However, his years-long battles with cancer and lung disease have taken a toll on his body – at one point sending his weight plummeting to 106 pounds."

Lori Jane Gliha and Serene Fang report for Aljazeera America October 14, 2014. [2]