On Friday night and Saturday, I thought I might not make it home in time to hug my dad again or tell him how much I love him. I had horrible nightmares about it the few times I managed to sleep on Friday night. We've known his cancer is bad but he has still been very active. He still works full-time, travels, goes on long walks, cooks us breakfast when we visit, goes swimming with the grandkids, and was mowing his own lawn until just a few months ago when he pulled his back and had to quit. He is young and strong and happy, and we thought we had more time. And then, suddenly, we thought we didn't. It was awful.
And then, just as suddenly, there was hope. He was doing better, they had a plan to use radiation to take care of the brain tumors, they even planned to send him home and his radiation treatment could be outpatient. It was so wonderful to hear, and yet so hard to believe at the same time. When I finally made it to the hospital Saturday night, I was in better spirits. Everyone was. But when I saw my dad, I just lost it. I had to grab him and sob on him and tell him how much I love him. It was horrible and wonderful to have that chance that I had really thought I may not ever have again. Then, once we all recovered from my emotional explosion, we sat and talked and laughed and ate. Unbelievable.
The next day, Sunday, I wanted to give my kids the chance I had had, to spend some quality time with my dad now that he was doing better. Abby, packed up party supplies to celebrate Boppa and we brought them to his room.
Then she and cousin Amelia set up the party table.
They spent the next few hours coloring and playing on iPads, and just enjoying being near family and especially near Boppa.
Adel brought Isaac and Aubrey to meet us for lunch and then he brought home the younger girls and we kept the other two to enjoy the same quality time with us.
Later that afternoon, Boppa came home and we were able to be there to welcome him back. Since he is stable and back home with a treatment plan, we came home to get the kids ready for the first day of school and to get us ready for the work week. We will definitely head back to see Dad ASAP on Friday afternoon.
He is getting around by himself right now. He is able to understand everything but because of the tumors and swelling, he still has trouble coming up with the words he wants to say. But so far he has been very clever in helping us guess what he means. It's like playing the game Taboo where you can't say certain key words so you have to make your partner guess by describing what you mean.
The treatment plan is 2 weeks of out-patient radiation, with weekends off. The radiation will probably make him weak and nauseous, but we hope it will do the job of attacking his tumors and he can be back to his normal self again. I pray that he will really be able to return to doing all the things he has been doing at work and at home. While we hope for the best, we still understand that even if the radiation works and his brain gets the all-clear, he still has cancer. His stage 4 breast cancer is metastasized in his body, which is why it spread to his brain. So, we take each day at a time, and treat each metastasis as it appears.
I have been trying to explain this horrible truth to my kids. Boppa is very sick with cancer and it is now in his brain. We have hope that the treatment will remove the cancer from his brain so he will be okay for a while longer, but he still has cancer and we have to appreciate every single day we have with him because we just don't know how long we have.
It's a terrible thing to have to tell your kids. But we also tell them how much our hope in Jesus helps us through tough times like this (see Truths to Cling to When Life Gets Crappy). It's still normal and okay to be sad, to grieve, to fear, but we are never without all hope. We always have the hope that Jesus gives through His victory, the peace that is possible in spite of awful circumstances. And now that I have had today to myself, with the kids at school, and I have had time to read, pray, listen to music, I am again so thankful for my Savior, for my God who sustains me and loves on me when I am so exhausted and when life can be so overwhelming.
