Conversations With God

Dear Heavenly Father,
I'm coming to you to ask for a miracle for my Dad. Right now there are two big events that lie ahead of us. I'm asking you to make sure the first one goes we'll so that the second one is even possible. You know Dad had testing on Monday, you and I have been talking about it a lot. I need you to make sure that his results are good enough to get him accepted into the trial. You know I like to be upfront and honest with you so I'm not asking you for that, I'm telling you to do it. That might be disrespectful but my heart is broken and I need you to come through and fix it by fixing my Dad. I know you can appreciate me being real with you. You know how I'm really feeling so there's no reason to pretend in our conversations that I'm being polite and asking. Even if his tests didn't go we'll or his body wasn't in the shape it needed to be on Monday I need you to do a divine intervention and change the results. This needs to happen. Oh, and there's more. Not only do I need you to get him into the trial, I need you to make it be successful. I need you to cure him of cancer. Every drop of it gone, never to return. Again, I'm not asking you. I know you hold the whole world in your hand and that you are the Alpha and the Omega. You are the redeemer and the healer. I know that you can see what is ahead of us and what the outcome of this is for my Dad. I trust you and know that if it's not your plan to heal my Dad right now that you have a reason. I get that. But, you also gave me emotions. Love, anger, sadness, angst, hope. So I think it's only fair that despite my knowledge of what you're capable of, I still am not ok with the thought that you might not heal my Dad. I'm coming to you now to tell you I need you to heal him. If you don't do it I won't understand why. I don't see the future like you do and I don't think that I can take any more bad news. You have shown me a lot of things in the past few days, and you've told me that I need to have hope. Until a few days ago I have been very real with myself and with how cancer works. I have purposely calloused myself to not get my hopes up. But you have shown me verses on facebook, and t shirts. You even brought up hope through a small clip in Breaking Bad the other night. You have given me doubts and being real and made me start believing that it is ok to hope again. So, I'm going to need you to do your part. To show me why you wanted me to hope again. You're the one who made me open my heart and make it vulnerable again and I'm hoping that that means you're preparing it to be able to rejoice. And that it will be ready to believe the good news when I get the call that my Dad is healed. I'm not telling you to do this because I don't think that you will, I'm telling you because I know that you can.
Amen.

Anticipation vs Reality

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. 

Unwelcome Anniversaries

It was my senior year of high school. Softball season. My Grandma had just had a heart attack and was going into surgery. I didn't think much of it. After all, she had been diagnosed with brain cancer and given 6 months to live. And at the time that had been 10 years ago. She had beat all odds and survived. The fact that she was given a 99% success rate for this surgery made me feel like this wasn't a big deal, not for her anyways. I mean, even if she was given a 50/50 there might have been some thoughts, but not a lot of worry. She had already beat death once and laughed in it's face for 91/2 years past the "expiration date" it had given her. 1% chance of death and 99% chance she'd be showing up back at our house sometime at 5am after a 2 hour drive from Pratt. I never got any more wake up calls. She never made it out of surgery that day.

Fast forward to my Freshman year of college. Spring again. My Grandpa and I were closer than ever. The loss of my Grandma had been hard on him but we went out on dates every single week and I think it really helped keep his mind off things. It was Good Friday and my cousin Jessica called me, told me that my Grandpa had a heart attack. It was mind blowing, earth shattering, life altering de ja vu. I left that day to go see him in Wichita. For the next few days we all camped out at the cardiac center there. We went in to visit him and talk to him as he waited to have his surgery. Same odds. Same. F**king. Odds. I remember watching my Dad as he relived this situation for the second time. One parent gone on a 1% chance, and the other awaiting the same surgery with the same chance, almost exactly a year later. I had never seen irony be so cruel.  I tried to imagine all the things going through his mind. He had to make the same connections I did. But I never asked to find out.
 

I watched an episode of Parenthood the other day and the family was all waiting for Zeek's heart surgery results in the waiting room. Another person in the waiting room got called into a different room. Someone had mentioned that when that happens it means they're giving you bad news. They give you good news in the main waiting room and bad news in a separate room so you can grieve.

That Easter Sunday morning we got asked to go into the separate waiting room.
 

Now we flash forward again, or backwards if you will, to June 19th, 2013. Exactly 2 years ago from today. At 10pm my alarm went off for work. I really enjoy my sleep so I usually only give myself time to throw some clothes on, brush my teeth and run out the door. That night was no different. By the time I got to work it was 10:45 and I noticed my Mom had sent me a message saying I needed to call her. I decided it was too late and that I'd call the next morning when I got off work. The next morning I received a call from my uncle and found out that my Dad had been put in the hospital the day before. His kidneys were failing and they were only at, I believe, 4% usage. It was horrible news, I can't honestly say I knew how bad of a thing that was. I mean, I know having your kidneys fail isn't a good thing, but was it a fixable thing, could it be turned around, is it a lifetime issue or just a quick stay in the hospital and everything will be back to normal? I had no idea, it just made me panic. I felt so guilty for not calling my Mom back. I should have called her and went to see her and stay with her that night. The next 3 days I spent every free minute I had at the hospital. The doctors ran every test they could think of to try and find out what was going on. At the end of those three days my Mom and Dad waited until all 3 of us kids were together and told us that Dad had cancer. He had gone from kidney problems to Cancer. From dialysis to chemo. From this sucks to WHAT...???

Finally, the present. The past few days I've been in this weird mood. It's not so bad until I'm alone and then it really hits me. You see,  I've known this big date in our family's life was coming up and it's really left me with this unsettling feeling. It's not the kind of anniversary you want to celebrate or remember, but it looms anyways. And to add to it my Mom had texted me one day saying that Dad's kidney's had been bothering him. That one little message brought back so many feelings. So many fears, insecurities, falsehoods. It made me remember thinking that something was wrong, but not "cancer kind of wrong," only to find out, it was in fact that exact kind of wrong. It made me feel very vulnerable and worrisome. I had always wondered how it felt to watch a horrific situation regarding your parents unfold in front of you twice like my Dad had to and now I couldn't help but feel like it was happening to me. I don't know what I expected to hear that could be so bad. Not to sound crass but he's not in remission so it's not like he was going to end up in the hospital and find out the cancer came back. It's already back. I just panicked.  It didn't make sense and I shouldn't have let it bother me but it really made me relive a lot of those old emotions. I've already heard my parents tell me once that Dad had cancer, and then tell me another time that it was back. I never wanted to hear those words or feel that way again. Twice was enough. Hell, once was enough. I suppose it's just a part of this journey, though. Every year around this time my heart will be heavy and mind will start to remember those feelings, I just hope my Dad's kidneys decide not to bother him this time of year ever again.

My hero. My mentor. My Mom.

When I think back to when my Dad first got sick there is an image that always pops in my head. It's a simple picture. But it resonates within me as a profound symbol of so many things. Love. Friendship. Strength. Hope. Togetherness. It rocked my soul. It well...It made me view life a little differently. I wish I could put into words all the things I felt. I watched the moment unfold before my eyes and I just had to capture it. I knew then that it was a moment that would define the rest of my Dad's journey. I'll just let you see it and let you decide what you get from it. 

They say behind every great man is a great woman but this picture shows why my Mom is the exception. She's never been the woman behind my Dad, she's always been beside him. Because of that my Mom is my hero.

 A lot of people have a misconception about who suffers from cancer. To them, it's the patient, but it's also the one who is doing what my Mom is doing, standing beside the patient. Since the day my Dad was put into the hospital my Mom has been a rock. There have been times when they had to give us bad news but my Mom always stayed positive. She would always say that God was in control and He would take care of everything. And she meant it. I don't know how she does it. I have doubted God so many times through this, been angry at Him. Yelled at Him, even cursed. But never her. She's always praising Him, giving Him thanks for the things they do have. My Mom is incredible.
I think of how common Cancer is these days and it scares me to think of my husband getting it. It breaks me down. These days it seems more people do have it then don't, and it scares the hell out of me. Just thinking about it has me in tears. But my mom lives my biggest fear. And she does it with such strength and grace.
She might not be superhuman but she is as close as it gets. We've had some pretty deep talks, talks where she is worried, where she cries, and where I don't know what to say or how to console her, but she's not asking for that. She's just getting her feelings out, which is true strength.

  There have been times where I have asked her how she's doing and she says things like, "You're Dad is having a really good day today." or "We've had a rough day, but we'll get through it." When I ask how she is, she tells me how he is. She always puts herself second. She is vigilant in her cares for my Dad, the love of her life. Even in the middle of all of her duties as a wife, a Mother, a Grandmother, and a caregiver she finds time to fill this world with her love. She's taken time to stop and make sure a local homeless man had ways to get food and something to drink. She updates everyone on her and my Dad's adventures and heartaches. A week or two ago a man came to our house to see my Dad and was speaking of the Melanoma he has and all the different radiation treatments he's had. He told us he's not complaining though, because what my Dad is going through is far worse. Instead of leaving it at what he said my mom said, "No, that's your journey. Your battles are just as tough and just as important. We all have things we fight and they are just as important as the next person's." I loved hearing her say that. I loved knowing that woman with such wisdom was my mother. She doesn't get caught up in the "pity me" mindset. And she never belittles anyone's problems they are facing. Instead she lifts them up, with words and with prayer. 

My Mother is a warrior. She is the woman spoken about in Proverbs 31. She's the woman who spends her days reminding Dad to drink his water. To not go out without his mask when he's neutrapenic and to make sure he doesnt overdo it when he's weak. To others it might sound like she nags at him about all the rules he has to follow. To me, she is being firm in her efforts to keep my Dad alive. And I will forever be thankful that she is so persistent on her "nagging." 

My mother does so many things just to help my Dad get by day to day that no one sees. She does things that don't make sense to other people, but to her they are things that are necessary for my Dad to have a good day. And she might not think that anyone sees them, but I do, Mom. I do. 

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.

My Dreams Aren't Your Dreams

Most girls dream of their wedding day. Or the day they have their first child. The day they buy a home to start their family in. I dreamed of all those things. But I also dreamed of the day my father would go into remission. A year ago today, that dream came true. I cried and thanked God in the middle of the break room at work. That whole day I was on such a high. I felt invincible. I felt like my Dad was invincible. He did it! Goodness had overcame. That day was one of the greatest days of my life. But it's hard for me to wrap my head around. Mainly because here I am, a year later, and I'm still waiting for that same dream to come true. A year later. His remission didn't even last a year. Just a few short months. Months. How can that be? He fought so hard and we were all riding on this high of life and defeating death only for it to come back and give us all terrible come downs.
Today we should be celebrating together or having a big pig roast. But we're not. Today, my Dad is 40 pounds underweight and oftentimes needs to use a cane to walk. Today I'll be listening to Lupe Fiasco's song "Mission" to give me hope. Hoping that my Dad will be just like Cathy Philips. Every time I hear her I cry. I hear the empowerment in her voice and I get chills. She sounds strong and fearless. "Hi, my name is Cathy Philips and I just beat the living shit out of breast cancer. Cancer definitely picked the wrong bitch to mess with. F$@% you cancer! Woo hoi! I'm a survivor baby! YEAH!!!" I dream that one day that will be my Dad. He won't say it in those words, but he will say it with a fierce boldness and empowerment. One day. I know it.

Listen to the song and read the lyrics here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIj8_E3oZx0

Achieving the Impossible

If people could catch a glimpse of the day I had yesterday they would weep. That's what I was doing anyways. All day long I received message after message. E-mail after e-mail. And after each one, I cried. It was so hard for me to wrap my head around how selfless all my parents, friends, family, and supporters are. Not only did it make me happy to know that my parents would be able to go on a guilt-free trip to Hawai'i but to also know that the world I'm raising my kids in is still full of loving, giving people.
When I started this GoFundMe account I wanted to be clear that this trip was for a vacation. It wasn't to help Dad get better. But so many of you realized that this vacation was to help him get better. To help him relax, and to go visit the place his heart resides. To give him hope.
I'll be honest, when I had to set a goal I thought, "why not set a crazy outlandish goal?" So I did. I thought. $5,000 to be raised by the kindness of others for a trip to Hawaii. I knew everyone was kind and rooting for Dad but I didn't know how much until my phone started going off nonstop. I watched as the list of donors got longer and longer and the total soared higher and higher. I was elated when we reached $1,000 after a few hours. Boggled when we hit the halfway mark, and dumbfounded when at the 23 hour mark we had achieved 75% of our goal. This morning I stared at my phone in shock. Not only did we hit the goal, but someone had blown it out of the water with a large donation knowing we only needed $90 to reach our goal. I called my parents and told them we reached our goal. Dad had me on speakerphone so Mom could hear. They were both speechless. Dad just kept saying, "I really just don't know what to say." And Mom literally said nothing, which if you know her tells you how shocked she was.
So thank you a thousand times over for helping me with two miracles:
Raising the $5,000 that I thought was impossible and making my Mom speechless, which I also thought was impossible. I love you, Mom!!