I Dont Know How to Answer Your Question

I have a love/hate relationship with a question that I get asked every day. "How's your Dad doing?". And I cringe when I hear it. Not because it annoys me. I think it's very indicative of the amazing friends and support that my parents have. It makes me so happy to know that so many people care.
What I hate about it is that I don't know how to answer it. Usually I say, "oh, he's doing good" or "he's Ok." But then those answers started to bother me. What do they even mean? What is "good" when it comes to having Cancer. I truly don't know. And when I say that, I guess I'm saying it in terms of his health, but he also has a spirit inside of him that I find to be just as important as his health. He could be getting worse but God and his faith are carrying his burdens and his pains and giving him good days. Or he could be doing alright in terms of the cancer but getting tired and broken from having to deal with the daily tolls of battling it.

And like I said before, what do words like, "Ok" "good" and "alright" mean? To any other person those might mean that life is going smooth maybe a few bumps here and there but nothing to complain about. But when someone has an incurable disease like Multiple Myeloma it probably has a different meaning. Sometimes I wonder what goes through my Dad's mind when he answers that question. I'll hear him say, "oh...ya know, I'm doing good."

And the way he pauses makes me wonder what went through his head in that brief amount of time. Does he think of the pain he's in? Or maybe the exhaustion he has from the chemo? Is he thinking of his mental state and how fickle it can be. Possibly how yesterday was a really bad day for him but today is better. He could even be thinking that things are actually not good, but he needs to keep a positive outlook, and thus his answer.

I don't know. I just know that it's almost impossible to answer that question. And please don't think that you can't ask me how he's doing. I truly love knowing people care enough to take the time to ask. Just know that this is scary and it's ever changing. Dealing with seeing your Father fight cancer is a contradiction, it's odd in the fact that this isn't a normal person's life, yet it's normal for us now. And because of that I don't really know how to answer so I say "he's Ok." But I don't even know what I mean by that. I suppose I mean, he's not about to die, but he's very much still fighting for his life. I guess that's what I mean. I guess. I'm sorry, I just don't really know.