Chemotherapy

Picked up dad from the hospital yesterday with a brand new mediport in his right internal jugular vein. It looks cool, a smart stitch along his clavicle covered in dermabond, but that's the kind of thing I'm supposed to see on "patients," not on my dad. It's been a real wake-up call, this whole cancer thing, realizing that I absolutely must advocate for every patient as if he were my own dad. No apathy, no telling stories and laughing around with the staff while my dad's in pain, nuh-uh, not on my watch.

I am picturing my dad a month from now with very little hair, 25 pounds lighter, and feeling very, very sick all the time; it's not a picture I like. Chemotherapy? All I know about chemotherapy is from my roommate in college, who hated everything and was cruel and bitter to the world because she was so, so sick. And I know what I learned in class, cisplatin causes "nausea, vomiting, myelosuppression," whatever, but looking at something on a flash card is a lot different than seeing your dad retching and aching and getting terrible infections. I hope it is mild for him (duh).

My to-do list stretches all the way down my appointment book, but I'm keeping in mind the talk I heard about "good, better, best." Sure, I would love to spend time studying French, doing ob/gyn research, ironing clothes for my husband; but eventually I keep coming to the realization that by jove, there's only 24 hours in the day, and I have to fill it with what matters. Right now that is being there for my family, keeping up on my calling as a sunday school teacher and visiting the temple, and staying on top of my coursework.

Life feels kind of surreal right now. What is a healthy 49-year old man who has never smoked a cigarette in his life doing with more than 11 tumors in his bladder? What is going on? But I'm finding more peace in the scriptures than I have at any point before. I know I am not perfect; I am working on becoming humble as Christ was, and I know it's a long road ahead. It's hard to have conversations with your dad as he sits in a hospital bed about what happens if he dies, when he asks if I feel ready to take guardianship of my siblings should something happen to my mom too, and then go home and try to study the diseases of the kidney (the kidney?! what about the bladder? what about bladder cancer? what about bladder cancer???).