Perhaps, I had a sub-conscious intuition; I sensed something, in retrospect it was a premonition of sorts. After liquidating my apartment furnishings, closing accounts; I packed my Haute couture wardrobe, (ha-ha), various items and sundries; irreplaceable possessions, i.e.: the cat; photos; documents; regrettably some old junk mail, I then hitched a ride-share through Craigslist.com. Christmas Eve of 2006, I traveled from Portland, Oregon leaving behind, "God's Country", (as many Oregonians refer to it), back to smoggy, crowded, covered-with-a-myriad-of-un-Godly materials, concrete and fumes, and my birthplace: Southern California. My original destination was not Papa's house.
On the 23rd day of February 2007 I came to a fork in the road, a twist in the plot (so-to-speak). I zagged instead of zigged this time. Then, 3 days later, Monday February 26, I experienced what must have been what they call a "paradigm shift". It sprang from my Dad's diagnosis that morning. My thinking, my perception of what matters had changed. It was Esophageal Cancer, the "Signet-ring cell" type.
So, this was the monster who was hiding under the bed. The big bad wolf knocking on the door. It had been years without a single thought of the bogeyman..., now he's here and encased in a gaping pit of uncertainty, fear and dread. It instantaneously narrowed my life's focus. Dad's treatment and recovery was paramount. Everything else shrank in the enormity of it.
Who knew? Life would land in San Pedro. A town unfamiliar to me with stranger-faces, far removed from where I have lived and loved. San Pedro is where I would remain for the interim.
Four months of intense chemo treatments began immediately in preparation for and prior to Papa's Esophagogastrectomy that turned into a Colonic Interposition during the surgery and thus, began my education into what it is to "fight cancer". We were informed that although the scans had shown a reduction in the tumor before the surgery, after those initial rounds of intense chemo, that when they attempted to pull his stomach up, in order to close the gap where they had removed all but a nub of his esophagus, the surgeon said that his stomach basically, literally "fell apart". He told me that he had never seen anything like it. This is a guy that only does esophageal surgeries and had come highly recommended due to his expertise. Truth is he is one of the best, next to his Father, the other Dr. DeMeester. I drove through downtown LA every morning to spend the days there with Dad and would come home every night most times in horrific traffic because Papa didn't want me traveling alone in that area around USC after dark. I didn't like leaving him alone there but there was really nothing I could do for him in the middle of night, and would be no good for any one especially if I wasn't getting any sleep.
After the month spent at the hospital, from June 26 to July 29, 2007 we returned the next week for the post-surgery pathology report and the prognosis. Mandy picked us up and went with us. We were told that out of the forty or fifty something lymph nodes that they removed, over 26 were metastasized with cancer. The farthest reaching lymph was the one closest to his liver. This was a stage IV cancer and he told us that it would return in 6 months to a year. He suggested immediate radiation and chemo. This coming from a guy who basically did all but denounce chemo prior to the surgery. Then he closed the meeting by saying to Dad, "I'm sorry but this will come back and you will die from this"
Chemotherapy treatments became our ritual. After allowing Dad 4 weeks to get stronger, it began with a solid month of daily radiation and chemo. Papa handled the surgery and the treatments better than any one expected. He amazed even the Doctors. I nick-named him my "Teflon-Dad". Nary a side-effect, maybe a day or two of slightly increased fatigue but for the most part, he seemed healthier than I myself, was feeling at that time.
September 2, 2008, I started at LA Harbor College. Taking the core Computer Applications Office Technology classes with the legal option for an A.S. in Legal Secretary. This was also the same week that his CEA, cancer markers had gone up, doubled I think in a month, from thirty something to like 75. I'm not sure because I wasn't going with him to the clinic any more and he had a girlfriend who insisted they get married, that said she was a registered nurse on disability. So she had been there with him, I think. Well, the Dr. told him that He needed to start an aggressive regimen of chemo like the first rounds they had given him before the surgery. Those rounds started that next week. I spent the end of that week after class on Wednesday with my best friend Angela and didn't come home. I just assumed his girlfriend would be with him. But then that first week of aggressive chemo, when he was hit pretty hard with fatigue, nausea and the rest of it, she was not around. They broke up within a month and the more he needed her the less she was around. Of course she kept the engagement ring. They got back together and broke up again twice by the first of this year. Meanwhile, it was taking Papa longer to recover after each round of chemo. Just when I thought he was going to see an end to the chemo, only a reduction to, taxotere alone. Regardless, he was eating less and less, and by the end of February, and through march, he hadn't recovered from the last round as he began the next. It got to the point he barely kept down about a total of a handful of food. Spent most of time in his room. Smoking. Tired. I was bothered by the fact that even though the CEA cancer markers were still rising when they tested him in march, they still gave him another round of chemo, and he was still flattened by the one 3 weeks before that.
April 3rd evidence in the PET scan showed that his cancer is back. I've always known that even the slightest blip on one of those scans would mean there is 10 fold more than seen on the scan of cancer growth actually there. By the 7th we realized that it was back with a vengeance. In at least four places including his skin. The following week, I watched the skin lesions grow, morphing into a shape like a crab (hence, cancer) the tumors under his arms were growing as well. His energy was low to none. He had not eaten in weeks and it looked like he may never eat again by the 13th. Thankfully, he has the J-tube for nutrition. Sometime that week we would be looking into hospice. I was freaking out. I hid that from him. He says I have a tendency to "panic". I am not panicking; I have known over two years that this was coming. By the 21st we finally got him on hospice. I've watched a tumor appear about 1/2 inch in diameter and grow to about 5 to 6 inches long, 2 inches wide and at least an inch high on the front of his chest, below his left nipple and down. The skin cancer is perpetually morphing in color and size and looks very angry. He cannot bare anything to touch it, not even the slightest breeze. His mind is still completely sharp but his body is rapidly failing him. He is bloating everywhere. Now absolutely nothing goes down by mouth. All meds are liquid or we crush and dilute in liquid to administer through his J-tube. Tomorrow is our first day of a bath nurse. I've run the gambit of emotions through this. Sometimes I feel completely overwhelmed. As I am getting the hang of what I need to do for him, I am less and less overwhelmed.
I am doing 14 units of school this semester and Finals are only 3 and four weeks away now. I'm way behind but I will catch up I hope, or at least not fail any classes. But once again, my focus, my priority, is Dad and these battles with the boogey man in a war we are going to lose.
Papa and I have gotten close over the past 27 months. I didn't have the chance to know him growing up, but none of that matters today. He told me today that he really likes the person he's gotten to know, that I have changed and grown a lot in the last 2 years. I told him in large part that is because of him. I'm not ready for him to go yet and I am trying to process the reality of what is coming, rapidly. That I am will have to watch my father die. I can't stop it. All I can do is what I am doing, trying to make him as comfortable and cared for as I can.
Reflect-Ability
By, Melinda Marinko
©1998
Quietly reflect into the waves
that are crashing on your sand.
Bringing with them an ever-changing power
that is beyond your own hand.
Absorb the mist; the taste;
the smell, the sounds of all you see.
Letting each approach
with a grasp of what has to come....
Then quickly, set it free.
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