According to medical science, Elvin Stanton didn't have a prayer because he had one of the worst types of cancer in his body.

But according to those who be­lieve in the Lord, prayer was in fact the answer.

Not only did Stanton survive what is medically considered to be terminal colon cancer, he also whipped prostate and kidney can­cer -- all within an 8-year period.

Some might credit modern medicine for his amazing recover­ies. Others might point to a mira­cle or luck or one man's strong will. Stanton will accept any of those explanations, but he's lean­ing heavily toward a higher pow­er.

"My battle with cancer would test my reliance on God and pro­vide me an opportunity to draw from that reservoir of faith, in­stilled deep into my heart by my parents and Christian upbring­ing," Stanton said.

He's chronicled his successful fight with three unrelated types of cancer in his book, "CANCER: Faith over Fear." It spotlights the moment he and his wife, Cameron, first learned of the insidious killer in his body.

Stanton, who was 62 when he got the bad news and is going strong today at 70, remembers asking his Birmingham doctor about his chances of survival. He had Stage Four cancer -- the worst kind -- and it had spread from his colon to his liver. When people reach that stage, it's an indication that death might be near.

"My doctor said my chances of survival were slim, less than 10 percent," Stanton recalled. "He put it in the single digits, but, he also said 'Somebody has to be that single digit and it might as well be you.'"

Even with that little bit of en­couragement, it didn't help his mental health at that moment. Stanton, a former reporter and once one of Alabama's most recog­nizable political figures, reacted the way most patients would when informed that the end might be only a few months away. His doc­tor didn't sugar coat anything in terms of his condition or his im­mediate future.

"He told me if I had any loose ends in my life, I needed to take care of them and get my house in order," Stanton said. "He indicat­ed that I was looking at three months, maybe six months at the most."

It didn't get any better when he and his wife began to look on their own for ways to beat colon cancer.

"We learned from the Internet that I had a better chance of win­ning the lottery than beating my kind of cancer because of how far it had progressed," said Stanton, who credits his wife and their church with helping him win a dif­ferent kind of jackpot: It's called survival.

After surgery, the Stantons learned that Elvin Stanton's can­cer had not only damaged a section of his colon, it had also metasta­sized and spread to his liver. As he was coming out of anesthesia, his wife asked the doctor: 'What are you telling me? Is my husband going to die?"

"Well, he's not going to die right now...let's not go there right now," she said the surgeon told her.

Once the top aide to Gov. George C. Wallace and a man fa­miliar with political struggles, Stanton knew the fight ahead of him was a matter of life and death, not winning elections.
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While Stanton was receiving chemotherapy treatments and his wife was busy studying colon can­cer, members of Woodland United Methodist Church came even closer to the couple.

"What I remember most during that time was the response of the church to really pray for them, to lift them before the Lord in pray­er," said the Rev. Cory Smith. "El­vin's illness was used in a way that drew all of us closer together and to God at the same time."

Woodland's prayer group meets on Sunday nights and a "healing service" was held for Stanton, as it has for other mem­bers of the church with medical problems.

"All of this was going on at the same time my medical treatment was under way," he said.
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With a family history like that, it was reason enough for Stanton to have a medical examination. Once the diagnosis was made, a surgeon removed the cancerous section of his colon. Six weeks aft­er his recovery period ended, a panel of doctors was ready to rec­ommend a standard form of che­motherapy, one used for 40 years.

His wife, meanwhile, learned of a noted physician at the National Institute of Health's oncology de­partment and he joined their little "team" after reading her hus­band's pathology reports.
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As his treatment con­tinued, Stanton became so ill he wound up in a hospital.
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Then, Stanton began to get bet­ter -- as he would when the two other types of cancer emerged. He and Cam have no doubts in their minds that treatments were spirit­ual as well as medical. He beat prostate cancer in 2006 and kidney cancer last year.

Stanton said the 140-page book he's written is "about a miracle of God and not about me."

"What I'm trying to do with my book is help people who are deal­ing with cancer and urge them to take charge of their own treatment and get support from others," he said. "In our case, it was our church."

Stanton, who has begun to speak to civic clubs and other groups in Montgomery about his cancer recoveries, firmly believes that God pulled him through in or­der to help others facing similar situations.

"He's using me to tell people that whatever you go through in life, He'll be there with you," he said."You just don't go through these things alone."

His book is dedicated to the love of his life -- for obvious rea­sons.

"If it hadn't been for Cam, I'd be dead," he said.