Middle of somewhere and nowhere
Last week we got the news that my dad’s cancer has spread to his liver.
It was the first time, in the past 2 1/2 years, that I “lost it” in the room with the doctor and my parents as she shared her fine news. As I continued on with my award winner performance, the doctor said in her oh so very cold oncologist trying to be warm and trying to help kinda way said, “At least he’ll make it through the Holidays.”
WHAT? AT LEAST WHAT??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME…WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? The voice in my head was screaming. As I calmed that voice, I found my voice saying, “He better fucking make it to Easter!”
Yeah, the F-bomb and crying and new metastasized cancer all in one visit. That was something.
So with the kids off of school for a week, I decided to throw out the idea of a road trip to my parents at Sunday dinner.
And tonight, after a 10 hour car ride filled with movies, candy and 326 Johnny Cash songs, I find myself sitting in a pitch black hotel room in the middle of Indiana, listening to my three kids snoring away and my parents sleeping across the hall. We are on our way to Cincinnati to visit my dad’s sisters, my cousins and my dad’s old friends.
Oh the stories we will bring home.
Filed under cancer, Dad, Family | Comments (3)3 Responses to “Middle of somewhere and nowhere”
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Do I sense hostility in that word Candy? Just checking…Jen
Oh, Mary, I am so sorry to hear about your dad. My mom had cancer when I was 26 years old and was sick for a year – and I was in America and only got to see her once. I was so immature and in no way able to handle her illness or death. I couldn’t even tell people that she had died, just couldn’t say the words – and people wondered why I was wearing black every day. I had nightmares and cried for two years.
I am so glad you are taking this trip, enjoy every day you have and suffer through every night. Today is all we have.
dorit
Sorry to hear about your father in the friend-of-the-family sympathetic (and mean it) sort-of-way.
I think the ‘F’ Bomb is completely appropriate when it comes to death, destruction, and mayhem created by cancer…