![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My dad probably has stage IV lung cancer
Nov. 15th, 2021 10:46 pmSo, wow. My life is completely different from how it was a week ago. Hello. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I posted this same thing on Reddit. Sorry Dreamwidth, you're not special :()
Um, yeah. I've gone through a LOT since last Wednesday, oof. That was the day that my 71 year old father had the CT scan that told us that his back pain was not just the usual sciatica stuff, that it was actually cancer starting from an unknown location and metastasizing into his bones.
Up to that point... my dad and I joke about how our side of the family is psychic, but not for anything practical like lotto numbers. I've been able to tell all year, since winter, that this was the last full year I'd likely have with him. I spent a lot of winter nights after January rolled over saying good night to my dad, going to my bedroom, and bursting into uncontrollable sobs. I'd say stuff like "I can just tell I'm getting ready to lose him" to my therapist, and she'd be like "that's the anxiety talking" and whatnot.
Like, no. I could TELL. I could tell some shit was about to go down before 9/11, I could tell when my cat was going to die in 2008. I could tell. So as much as it is a terrible shock, I'm not surprised. If that makes sense?
I actually found out before he did because I was looking at the test results on his MyChart. When I read the results of the test, I broke down sobbing, trying not to scream. He was right there in the room, but I was like, "calm the fuck down, you idiot, let him have this one last night before he knows what's going on." I knew his doctor would call him with the information the next day and I wanted to just give him that last night. So I did.
The next day he told me. I cried again, freaked out. He was on his way to the gas station or something and I had to make my (disabled) mother a sandwich. I was trying to hold it together, but the toaster was taking forever and I yelled at the damn thing to hurry the fuck up or I was going to Office Space its ass.
Then I went upstairs and scream-cried to my mother for several hours. She and he, although having been married for 48 years, absolutely hate each other and are only still together for financial reasons. So her take was like "Huh, sucks." This is what I expected of her, so I'm not disappointed. She let me cry and sob.
Friday and Saturday, I was also a wreck. I kept trying to speak and just hyperventilating. A lot of staring into space.
But since Saturday night I've been eerily fine. I'm in crisis mode and manic, every so often I almost cry, but then I move on.
I've had a lot of trauma in my life and I'm actually on SSI for various mental health issues. I'm high-strung in general and tend to flip out and have meltdowns over (compared to this) minor things.
This is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to me. But I have to hold it together... because it's just me, my dad, and my mother. Right now I'm basically the only able-bodied person in the house and the only one able to physically do chores. I'm the only one to advocate for my dad to doctors and arrange stuff that he's not able to do. Anything involving a computer, he's never used one, so that's all up to me.
We joke about how I'm there to "translate" for my dad, and that's because he had a stroke in 2016, and while his speech is excellent and he's ridiculously smart, his brain tends to organize information differently than most people. So they'll ask him a simple question and he'll somehow end up talking about the Peloponnesian War or some gun manufacturer from the 1800s. Or the etymology/mythological history of the person's name. It's like in season one Power Rangers how Trini had to translate for Billy's rambling technobabble. I'm the only one who gets what my dad is trying to say and can condense it.
Ha, but I ramble, too. Because when I say he PROBABLY has stage IV lung cancer, it's because they did a PET scan today and the oncologist is pretty sure, but they need to run a couple more tests.
So that's where we stand right now. The doctor was optimistic about treatment. Is that how they normally are? My dad's own primary care doctor apparently spent the whole phone call saying how sorry she was. The oncologist left us both feeling super optimistic. He was careful to tell us that it is not curable, but it is treatable.
I obviously want to have as much time as I can with my dad. I really don't know anything about cancer except my very limited/vague memories of my grandfather also having lung cancer. He was diagnosed in like 1991 and died in late 1994.
It hasn't even been a week yet. God, this is just hideous, isn't it?
Um, yeah. I've gone through a LOT since last Wednesday, oof. That was the day that my 71 year old father had the CT scan that told us that his back pain was not just the usual sciatica stuff, that it was actually cancer starting from an unknown location and metastasizing into his bones.
Up to that point... my dad and I joke about how our side of the family is psychic, but not for anything practical like lotto numbers. I've been able to tell all year, since winter, that this was the last full year I'd likely have with him. I spent a lot of winter nights after January rolled over saying good night to my dad, going to my bedroom, and bursting into uncontrollable sobs. I'd say stuff like "I can just tell I'm getting ready to lose him" to my therapist, and she'd be like "that's the anxiety talking" and whatnot.
Like, no. I could TELL. I could tell some shit was about to go down before 9/11, I could tell when my cat was going to die in 2008. I could tell. So as much as it is a terrible shock, I'm not surprised. If that makes sense?
I actually found out before he did because I was looking at the test results on his MyChart. When I read the results of the test, I broke down sobbing, trying not to scream. He was right there in the room, but I was like, "calm the fuck down, you idiot, let him have this one last night before he knows what's going on." I knew his doctor would call him with the information the next day and I wanted to just give him that last night. So I did.
The next day he told me. I cried again, freaked out. He was on his way to the gas station or something and I had to make my (disabled) mother a sandwich. I was trying to hold it together, but the toaster was taking forever and I yelled at the damn thing to hurry the fuck up or I was going to Office Space its ass.
Then I went upstairs and scream-cried to my mother for several hours. She and he, although having been married for 48 years, absolutely hate each other and are only still together for financial reasons. So her take was like "Huh, sucks." This is what I expected of her, so I'm not disappointed. She let me cry and sob.
Friday and Saturday, I was also a wreck. I kept trying to speak and just hyperventilating. A lot of staring into space.
But since Saturday night I've been eerily fine. I'm in crisis mode and manic, every so often I almost cry, but then I move on.
I've had a lot of trauma in my life and I'm actually on SSI for various mental health issues. I'm high-strung in general and tend to flip out and have meltdowns over (compared to this) minor things.
This is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to me. But I have to hold it together... because it's just me, my dad, and my mother. Right now I'm basically the only able-bodied person in the house and the only one able to physically do chores. I'm the only one to advocate for my dad to doctors and arrange stuff that he's not able to do. Anything involving a computer, he's never used one, so that's all up to me.
We joke about how I'm there to "translate" for my dad, and that's because he had a stroke in 2016, and while his speech is excellent and he's ridiculously smart, his brain tends to organize information differently than most people. So they'll ask him a simple question and he'll somehow end up talking about the Peloponnesian War or some gun manufacturer from the 1800s. Or the etymology/mythological history of the person's name. It's like in season one Power Rangers how Trini had to translate for Billy's rambling technobabble. I'm the only one who gets what my dad is trying to say and can condense it.
Ha, but I ramble, too. Because when I say he PROBABLY has stage IV lung cancer, it's because they did a PET scan today and the oncologist is pretty sure, but they need to run a couple more tests.
So that's where we stand right now. The doctor was optimistic about treatment. Is that how they normally are? My dad's own primary care doctor apparently spent the whole phone call saying how sorry she was. The oncologist left us both feeling super optimistic. He was careful to tell us that it is not curable, but it is treatable.
I obviously want to have as much time as I can with my dad. I really don't know anything about cancer except my very limited/vague memories of my grandfather also having lung cancer. He was diagnosed in like 1991 and died in late 1994.
It hasn't even been a week yet. God, this is just hideous, isn't it?
