Not Ready Yet

At the beginning of April, we found out that my almost 60 year old, workin out every day, getting a full physical every June, doing everything he can to be healthy father has prostate cancer. All through the series of exams and tests and biopsies he had we played the "it will be nothing and he'll be fine" game. Except we lost. On the prostate cancer scale, he was an 8 out of 12.

Because he has a fairly minor, but still there, heart condition, he's not a canidate for surgery. Because of a medication he is on, he's not a candiate for a different treatment. On June 6th, he started his radiation treatments. 42 treatments that concluded on Tuesday. And now we're in the 2 week wait. We give the last treatment time to do it's thing and then they test to see what's left in there. They said the test would take probably another 2 weeks. And we wait.

And we play the game again. But I'm losing faith in the game. Everyone is all smiles and optimism on the outside, as am I. But on the inside, I'm holding my breath because if I don't I'm going to scream and cry and puke all at once. I don't like my options for how this game is going to end. Either, they will say he is fine and we will hold our breath some more (for the next 100 years) wondering when it will come back OR the radiation will have not worked and we will begin our saying good-bye. Because the options that are available to him are limited, my dad as already spent a long time pondering, soul searching and discussing with his dr. They both feel that if he wants to maintain any kind of quality of life, that radiation was his only treatment option. My dad has absolutely, positively decided that this is it. All or nothing.

I don't want to play this game. I can't force my hope to rise to the top only to have the bottom fall out again. Cancer sucks.