So I’ve known since Thursday that my dad probably has cancer. I thought I was pretty well prepared to deal with it as soon as I had all the information. Unfortunately, that’s just not how medicine works. With modern medicine, you find out there’s a problem. And then you find out it’s a big problem. And then they run tests and you wait. And then the results come in that the big problem is indeed a big problem. And then they have to run more tests to see how big of a problem it is and what or if they can do about it. So you don’t ever really a full picture until you’re sufficiently freaked out and overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge by the huge amount of thinking you’ve had the time to do while the doctors were getting their ducks in a row.
My dad got the biopsy results back today. A day early. He has adenocarcinoma. What does that mean? Well given the research I’ve done thus far, it doesn’t mean a lot until they do the PET scan and can figure out if the cancer has metastasized to other parts of his body, from there they will be able to determine what stage the cancer is in. But long story short, he has lung cancer. A particular lung cancer that has a 17% survival rate beyond 5 years, even with surgery, chemo and radiation. So the odds are not good.
And I am scraping and clawing to keep level headed. I am demanding that my brain not go down oh shit rabbit hole of doom. I am chaining myself to reality. Because it’s not just me that I have to worry about. I have to figure out how the hell to tell my children that their papa is going to leave them forever. I have to figure out how to maximize our time with my dad. I have to do whatever I can to help my parents make some hard decisions and make sure that whatever time my dad has left is exactly what he wants it to be.
I have to be brave enough to stay present with this.
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