News...not good.

Day 4, October 4, 2008

Yesterday was mostly a blur. I chose to stay the night at Dad's room in case he needed anything. This meant no sleep whatsoever for me, but I was able to see that he was passing the night well, and the nurses were taking good care of him. Mom came and got me at 5am, and I crashed for a few hours at her house. Dad didn't improve much yesterday, still gurgling and not getting any stronger. However, I'm now a licensed bedpan specialist.

I did manage to sleep well last night, and awoke this morning to an empty house. I knew that Mom's an extremely early riser, so I called her cell. Things aren't going well this morning...Dad's struggling. She said she couldn't come get me, she was tied up with Dad. I told her I'd think of something.

You guessed it. The scooter. Did I mention Dad's scooter? I've been tooling around the neighborhood on it. I figured that Dad would have just jumped on it and headed out...so I followed his example.

I passed Mom on the way, and she u-turned to catch up with me in the hospital parking lot. Rather than berate me for driving it as I expected, she simply said, "Do you see any other scooters here?"
"No."
"That's because it'll be gone when you get back. Drive it home, and I'll bring you back up here."
"That's crazy! I'm already here!"
"Seriously, it'll be gone when you come out. Get moving."

Have I mentioned that there's no arguing with my Mom? I drove it home. It's a beautiful morning for a drive, anyway.

Now for the news, and it's not good: Dad's got lung cancer. We're going to have a cancer specialist look him over. If there's anything to be done, we want to know, but Dad's too weak for surgery, chemo, or radiation. What else is there to do? We'll find out if there is anything, but it doesn't look like there's much left at this point. If the options are exhausted, we're bringing him home and setting him up in a spare room, to make him as comfortable as possible until the end finally comes. With stronger pain medication, there's a chance he could just slip away before we can even get him home, but we'll just have to take it one step at a time.

Thanks for all your texts, emails, and comments. They really help. Your well-wishes and support will never be forgotten, and they really are helpful during all of this.

Hug your loved ones, folks, and talk to them. There comes a day when all of us deal with this stuff, one way or another. There will be things left unsaid, undone, tales untold, and there lie regrets. There is an awful lot of stuff I'll never know about my Dad...he's too far gone to regale me with tales of his colorful youth, so I'll never know what his favorite pastime was when he was a kid, or who was his first crush, or if he skipped school to go fishing. The stuff I know now is all I'm going to know.

But, I know he loves me. He knows I love him. We've had a good time as father and son, and reached a comfortable companionship over the years. I can certainly live with that.

I'll update when I can. Be well.