With just a few days left before he was to leave Pittsburgh and return to Iraq, Army Spc. Dan Parsons received a phone call on Friday granting him permission to stay and care for his new bride, who has terminal cancer.

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His wife, Stacey Moskal, was napping in the next room when she heard him addressing a senator. She entered the room as he was hanging up the phone. With a smile spreading across his face, her husband broke the news that this time, he did not have to leave her behind.

"They were preparing themselves," for him to go back, said close friend Tiffany Casarcia. "He didn't have a choice."

It was a happy turn of events for a couple who have seen their share of obstacles.

Moskal, 22, who is in the process of changing her name to Parsons, was diagnosed with cancer when she was 18. Her doctors, who have shared her condition with colleagues around the world, cannot determine what kind of cancer she has or how to treat it. And although she has beat it before, she found out in March that the tumor had returned, and was growing.

When Moskal got this disheartening news, Parsons, now 21, was stationed thousands of miles away in Iraq. He arrived there shortly after the couple got engaged last Christmas. As a member of the 107^th Field Artillery, a Pennsylvania National Guard unit, Parsons had been wounded twice, and two soldiers in his division were killed in May.

When he received the news that his fiancee might not have more than 30 days left to live, Parsons was given two weeks' leave to return to Pittsburgh to get married, but his request for a permanent reassignment was denied.

And so, after a heart-rending wedding last week and a honeymoon in Niagara Falls, Parsons and Moskal were getting ready to say goodbye again. But as the bride readied herself to begin a new wave of chemotherapy treatments at the Hillman Cancer Center next week, she hoped in the back of her mind that her husband could be beside her.

Parsons submitted a letter to U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's office on Tuesday requesting a compassionate reassignment. Santorum then contacted the Army, asking for special review and consideration of the request.

The couple hadn't heard anything by the time the rain started falling in Pittsburgh on Friday, so Parsons started to pack.

But later in the day, Santorum's office was notified that Parsons was granted early release from active duty, and then the senator called Parsons.

"I was deeply heartened when I learned that Specialist Dan Parsons' request for an early release from active duty was granted so that he can care for his new wife, Stacey," Santorum said yesterday. "My thoughts and prayers are with these two courageous people who may face some difficult days ahead, but will now be able to face them together."

Parsons reports for duty as a reservist in the Army National Guard tomorrow, and will begin looking for a job to support the couple.

On Tuesday, when he would have been flying back to Iraq, Parsons will instead be fighting beside his bride, who he says is "a fighter" who loves life.

He will accompany her as she goes through an experimental chemotherapy treatment that the couple hopes will decrease the size of the tumor in her lung.

"Having him with me during chemo is 10 times easier," she said.

And Moskal no longer has to exhaust herself trying to squeeze in every last minute with her husband, not knowing when or if they would see each other again.

"I'm looking forward to married life," she said. "It's like I don't have to worry anymore."