Every time I see my Dad he looks more like a skeleton and less like my Dad. I can't help but to notice how small his legs are. They're frail and bony. They used to deliver roundhouse kicks as he instructed karate class and now they barely hold him as he walks. His tattoo he got done just a few short years ago used to stretch across his muscular arms. Now it hangs on his limp skin that has no muscle or fat to cling to. His clothes swallow him up. The shirts he wears are loose garments draped over his body. His pants hang from his waist and I imagine a belt underneath that has added holes in it to make it tighter than it was meant to go and a cinched waistline bunched up beneath it. There's this darkly ironic detail I've noticed. The chemo has destroyed his body, but his hair is coming back. I know we can't pick and choose what side effects the chemo has but it's wreaked havoc on his weight and let his hair continue to grow in, and it pisses me off. He didn't have hair before because he always kept his head and face shaved, now there's peach fuzz everywhere and no fat anywhere. If that's cancer or life's way of being funny, I'm not amused
He used to be a big foodie. He still loves new restaurants and food trucks, but he rarely eats anymore and when he does he fills up on a few bites and then struggles to keep it down. The lack of calories he consumes has left him weak, and exhausted. It's a challenge to get from the couch to the front door and back. Small tasks like letting our car Fred out, cooking a TV dinner, and chasing my 1 year old Dexter around are doable, but they push him to his limits. Sometimes they push him past them. It's tough to see him on the couch every time I go to their house because I know he's probably only gotten up to go to the bathroom. A few years ago he was training for BJJ/MMA fighting and now....
In the Lupe Fiasco song "Mission" that I reference a lot, there's a man at the intro who talks about his battle with cancer and what he went through to get into remission. There's a line from the song that he said before that broke my heart but now it haunts me because now I don't just understand what he saying, I see it happening right in front of me. He says, "I literally died to stay alive." Before my heart went out to this brother in the dysfunctional family that cancer creates, but now I weep for my Dad. Even though the man said he was LITERALLY dying to stay alive I didn't get what he was saying in it's full capacity.
The strange thing about cancer, or one of them, is that you know what to expect, but everything is still such a surprise when it happens. There's a big difference between anticipating and experiencing. I knew my Dad would get sick. I've seen other people get sick, I've watched documentaries, I've seen movies and TV shows about people with cancer and what it does to them, but cheese and rice... seeing it happen to family, that's a whole different thing.
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