9:20 a.m. - September 16, 2003
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They did the byoscopy (not sure that's the correct terminology). Mom says that it only took about 20 minutes but they had to stay another 4 hours for the anesthesia to wear off. He's still very out of it she says. The news is grim. He has a mass upon a mass in his right lung and several smaller ones in his left. It's in his liver and the doctor is sure it's in his brain because of his speach and the way he carries his arm. It's called non-small cell lung cancer and he's at a stage IV. The only thing they can do for him is keep him comfortable.
My heart is breaking.
My mom seems to be keeping a realistic point of view in that she's got her head on straight enough to be getting his things in order. He never had any of that kind of stuff, ie. a will, life insurance, etc. completed. He has no life insurance so that's pretty cut and dry. He never had a will because he always said he was never ready to die. My oldest brother is going to check out all of that today. Poor Gary, (middle bro), he's getting the brunt of everything because he lives so close. He's taking them back to the doctor today so that they can give my dad the results, he doesn't even know yet that he's so far along. Mark and I are making arrangements for my mom to come live with us. She will kick and scream the whole way, but I don't think there's an alternative, financially anyway. She's got some time to think about it so I'm not going to bring it up again until later.
Funny how quickly our lives can be toppled. We've all kind of known something was up for awhile because Dad hasn't looked right, but in his usual "I'm fine, don't worry about me" way, I think he had us all believeing him, but like the dr. said yesterday, he could've come in last year or five years ago and the results could've been the same it's just that now the cancer has no body fat or muscle to feed off of so it's attacking the organs.
I'm sorry to have rambled, I just feel completely lost right now.
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