My Dad Has Cancer

Still hard to say out loud.  

They found cancer when doing a routine colonoscopy.  He elected to have the surgery as soon as possible, which turned out to be the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  I thought the timing was bad, you don't want to be in a hospital when the "B" Team is all that is working but I wasn't heard.  I think they were too freaked out.  Anyway, Dad had complications from the surgery and had a rough time in the hospital.  Unfortunately, both Mom and I came down with the flu during this time so we couldn't help much either.  I was at Carnell's house but would have gotten myself to Bham if I could have.  

They took out 12" of his colon and the cancer had left the colon area.  He was Stage 3.  They took out a bunch of lymph nodes and since a couple of those came back with evidence of cancer cells, they elected to do chemotherapy as a precaution.  His diagnosis had it as a 0 on the metastasized scale so that's good.  He has to do 12 round of chemo.  He started chemo the first week of Jan.  He has to do chemo every other week until he completes the rounds of chemo.  

That means he and my Mom may not be able to do the France trip that they have been so looking forward to.  They were going to go with a bunch of friends and do D-Day at Normandy Beach (for my Dad as a history buff), then Paris, then travel down the Siene on a river boat and taste wine.  They were oh so excited about going but it looks like they won't be able to go now.  

We hope that the chemo doesn't knock him down too terribly much.  We think he'll be clear after we finish the chemo rounds and obviously have to go back for colonoscopies more frequently.  But at least then, if there is any growth, they'll be able to just scoop it out before it's a big deal.  

I came to visit him the week after his first chemo treatment.  He's more tired and wears out more quickly than he wants to admit.  Figures.  He also thinks he has every possibly chemo symptom already and it's only going to get worse.  Natural I suppose.