Resnik, who is in biotechnology, and who now lives in Mastic but made Bellmore-Merrick his home at one time, was diagnosed with kidney cancer in June 2014. It is an especially insidious disease, which does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation treatments. The only option is to remove the tumor surgically, Resnik said. The five-year survival rate for kidney-cancer patients diagnosed at Stage I of the disease is 95 percent. The rate drops to 50 to 60 percent when they are diagnosed at Stage III, the point at which Resnik’s cancer was discovered. One day he found blood in his urine. He knew then that he was very sick, he said.

“The events of 9/11 don’t haunt me,” he said. “It’s the fear now of having cancer. I have three young kids who are the world to me. The thought of them not having a father to see them grow up…” He paused to compose himself. “Then I think about all those people who have it so much worse than me. I’m clearly one of the lucky ones.”

Resnik’s children are 10, 8 and 3. His surgery was a success. The cancer has not yet returned. Before he was cleared for the procedure, he had to undergo a full medical exam, including a heart test, during which doctors discovered a congenital defect in his aortic valve. “I consider it my miracle when I found out about it,” he said. If it had gone undetected, it might have killed him within a month, Resnik said his doctors told him.