* can a mod please move this to GenDisc?*
* THE FOLLOWING MAY BE VERY DEPRESSING, consider yourself warned*
About a month and a half ago, my father celebrated his 70th birthday. A birthday the doctors said would never come.
You see, he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 35, and it was what eventually led him to quit his job as a ship captain. He used to sail all over the world and bring souvenirs, then he'd lock himself in his private little museum and write whole A4 notebooks worth of knowledge of old customs, songs, words and general lore about the past of the region, knowledge he collected over the years. To this day, he wrote more than 100 of them.
After his 4th operation, the doctors said his chances of waking up is minimal at best. Then came the 5th operation. Then the 6th. Then the 7th. His appendix was practicly gone at this point so he had to watch what he ate.
Then the 8th operation, about a month before his 70th birthday. The cancer was spreading and one his kidneys was removed, the other was barely working for a while, but it recovered. My father was left with 2 bags he had to carry with him (for urine and excrement), and a weakned body due to all the time in the hospital. But, he was always a mans' man. Tall, broad-shouldered, boisterous, tanacious.
He bounced back and the birthday was spent in good spirits.
However, as christmas passed his condition started to worsen. The cancer spread again, this time to the leg, and apprently the bone. If you didn't know, this is bad scenario, since it causes pain. But he soldiered on. Despite barely being able to stand on his feet, he refused to use the wheelchair. Depsite being in obvious pain, he refused any pain medication. But there are limits to everything. A few days ago it was obvious he couldn't get to the bed, even with me and my mother helping him. I practicly carried him. He was in so much pain he was shivering, and still my mother had to actually yell at him to get him to take some pain medication.
For the last two days his condition is...not good. He spends most of the day sleeping, and when he isn't he is dazed. It's disheartening to see such a mounatin of a man in such a weak state, shrunk and feelbe. His once booming voice a whisper. It's painfull to look at him like that, and I know it pains him even more to be seen like that. Right now, we are keeping the morphine bands on standby if it gets worse. And it will.
The doctors flat out told us that there is nothing more they can take out, nothing more they can do. He is dying and everyone knows it. Him too. For the first time in my life I've sen him cry....cry at mundane things. I pretended not to notice, and continued typing his notebooks onto my laptop. We hoped the book about old customs - his book - might be out while he was alive. Now I blame my own damn slowness at typing. I could have typed more. But I didn't. And yet ultimatively, this books seems so irrelevant to me now.
The family is natually distraught. My mother - as strong woman as any I have ever known - is nearly broken. Physicly and mentally. I try and help as much as I can around the house and with dad, and I know that at least partially she is pushing herself in doing all kinds of work as a distraction. I know I do. I try to do everything just so that I don't have to think about it.
My syster had to take medication to calm herself. But I had a long talk with her and she has calmed down. She still hasn't told her kids, who love their grandfather. Their visit is still one of the things that clearly make him happy.
Myself? I'm handling it as good as one can under these condition, I think. No crying, no panic attacks. Just some numbness and distraction. Even as I'm typing this, I'm only doing it because it makes me feel better. It probably hasn't hit me yet.
I was always close to my father, but we never talked that much. We'd watch cartoons together (he loved Bugs Bunny and other old ones, and I do too) and various documentaries, over which we'd sometimes comment and talk. I must have seen every single documentary on Discovery Channel and National Geogrpahic, and a lot of cooking shows. Since he sleeps most of the day now, and the last two years I've been watching less and less with him ....I miss it.
And to think his father died of cancer. And all of his 5 siblings(he's the oldest) - all had cancer too. No cancer on my mothers side, so I have a good chance of being spared.
But just to be sure, me and my sisters will go for a checkup. There are good methods today, the easiest one being a rengden scan and taking of a blood sample for specific markers. Mind you, the marker method is great, but requires you to go periodicly (once a year..preferably once every 6 months), since it's based on comparisons with previous samples. But it is supposedly very accurate.
So my advice to you people - get a checkup. Even if you don't have a history. From my discussion with doctors and research I've done into cancer, it's becoming more frequent (as are allergies). Wether it's our lifestyle or something else, I do not know, but it's not a good sign. Either way, early detection is half the solution.
Stay safe, stay healthy.
