Dad Has Cancer Too

A little over a year ago my Dad called to tell me that his doctor had checked his PSA and that while still within normal range it had jumped from low normal to high normal. The doctor had checked and felt a small nodule on his prostate so he was sent to a urologist to have it biopsied. He told me that they were sure it was probably nothing but they wanted to have it checked out anyway.

On Thursday June 25, 2014 I was over at my friend Kristina's apartment. We had taken Amelia swimming. We had come back to her apartment after it had started storming and I was sitting at her dining room table when my Dad called me. The biopsy had returned positive for prostate cancer. Of course my Dad has cancer, of course, I thought. In a Facebook note I wrote on New Year's Eve last year I delineated a series of trials my family has been through the past 5 years. A never ending series of sad, unfortunate events. My Mom had cancer, so of course why shouldn't my Dad too?

However, unlike my Mom, I knew my Dad was going to be okay. Mom had drawn the short end of the cancer stick. Prostate cancer is highly curable when caught early. But still, my Dad had cancer. Honestly, I feel for my Dad. His cancer was put on the back burner. I would even forget about it sometimes. I would be talking to him about what was going on with Mom and then I would remember that he was getting cancer treatment too. "Oh yeah Dad, how's your cancer?" I would say when I'd remembered. I think people who have more "minor" cancers sometimes might be looked over, they don't get the same support from family and friends. I know I didn't give the same support to my Dad. It's still cancer though and cancer in any form is scary. I knew my Dad was worried and scared. Our family does not have a good history of winning against cancer.

My parents saw radiation oncologists on back to back days last summer, Mom in Muncie, and him in Florida. She would undergo 15 radiation treatments to her bone metastasis in her hip and spine. He would receive hormone therapy to shrink the prostate and then undergo 42 radiation treatments to his prostate.

I'm sure some people think it was terrible my parents were divorced and then a year later my Mom develops such an aggressive cancer. Such a shame my Dad wasn't there for her right? I can tell you it was good my Dad left when he did. It was for the best. The turmoil that had been brewing for years was over. People who know and understand my family intimately know this. It would've been too much for us children to manage both parents with cancer on top of a lifetime of hostility. Sometimes we don't see it then, but things work out like they're supposed to. I can tell you it has taken me a long time to come to this resolution, I still sometimes waver in my thoughts.

I finally told my Mom about his cancer a couple days before she was hospitalized for pneumonia and sepsis last July. She paused a long time as she did when she was contemplating things. "Well," she finally said, "I wish them well." I was surprised. Maybe she just didn't have the strength to be angry, but I was grateful for her tempered response.

My Dad finished cancer treatment in November. The treatment was successful but I can tell you it aged him. Not too long after he completed treatment he ended up in the ICU with chest pain and an irregular heart rate. He got through it, but he's not the same, but he's doing everything in his power to live.

I am fortunate to have two parents who have taken extraordinarily good care of me, and every day I'm grateful to still have one with me in this world.