My Dad

Well.... I was all prepared to post about the many adventures of our silly side-by-side refridgerator. It has been acting up lately but we've kept it working despite it's complaints. Life has decided to take a different turn that we were all unprepared for.

My dad has been basically well his entire life. Hardly ever getting sick. About 8 - 9 years ago I started noticing his memory not being quite as good as I know it had been. A few years back he finally was diagnosed with dimentia. Several of his siblings have been diagnosed with either dimentia or alzheimers.

It is easy for me to see changes in my dad since I don't see him all that often. We live about 600 miles away from my parents.

My dad was just up here for one of his brother's funeral. When I greeted him upon his arrival I noticed that he looked like walking death. It is normal to be quite tired after such a long drive but he was more drained than normal. His skin looked grey - he had an "old person" smell to him - his memory was even more out of whack than when I had last seen him (7 months ago). His appetite use to rival my brother's (who drove the whole way for this trip). Now, my dad eats less than my 2 year old daughter.

I cried myself to sleep thinking that he wouldn't wake up in the morning. Thankfully he did. Many prayers have been said for him since I first saw him.

Well... The day before he came up here he had had a CAT scan of his abdomen. A Urologist had ordered the scan to find out why certain things were showing up on lab tests. Turns out that everything this doctor was looking for were just fine. BUT... (Monday) He was quickly referred to an Oncologist (cancer doctor). Turns out that something showed up on the CAT scan that wasn't good. Today (Tuesday) he had his appointment. They have to do a biopsy to find out just what they're dealing with but so far we know that my dad has a mass on his pancreas as well as 2-4 "spots" in his liver.

We're in limbo until he can get the biopsy done and get the results back. Thankfully everyone is working in super fast forward mode. If he hadn't been here for the funeral things would have been happening last week.

Saturday (the day my dad and brother went back home) was my dad's 77th birthday. It has been hard to watch this strong, loud, "John Wayne" type of man change to this "child" (with still a bit of fiestyness) over the recent years.

He's had MANY jobs over the years. He grew up on a farm raising cattle for milk and meat. They also grew their own feed for the herd. He's been in the army twice and the air force once... He was a bull rider, truck driver, teacher, mechanic, a/c repair, exterminator to name a few. When he was a kid he was hit by a car (model A Ford) while learning to ride a bike. He was thrown about 120 feet and took over a year to recover. A farmer who was out in his fully grown corn field saw what he thought was a "child's rag doll" being thrown through the air. It wasn't until later that he realized that it was a kid (about 11 or 12 years old).

They haven't said "cancer" yet but I don't know what else they could possibly label the "mass" in his pancreas. All my research about pancreatic cancer shows a pretty grim outcome. Nevertheless.... prayers have and will be said over my parents as well as the doctors who have his life in their hands.

I'll post more updates as I learn more about what's going on.