I have contemplated for a while if I should start a blog or not because I don't know if I'll even keep up with this thing..and I don't think I am a very good writer...but, I have given in. I guess the traditional journaling isn't for moi...I've tried but I always forget about it and end up writing in it once a month or so.
So I'm not exactly sure what's going to be going on this thing...probably personal things (like me venting) along with some other miscellaneous stuff...I'm not even sure if I'm even going to share it with anyone...maybe just something for me to keep for myself...so let's see how this turns out.
Anyways...sooo the last half of 2011 went by pretty quick for me..and a lot... I mean A LOT of things changed very quickly. I guess my first blog entry is going to be a little depressing?sad? I don't know...but not going to be a very cheerful topic. Just as a lil disclaimer, I am not writing this to gain sympathy or pity, people are actually quite caught off guard when they see how OKAY I am. It's hard for me to talk about this because I am a very...private person? I guess you could say...or sometimes I feel when I talk to someone I am dumping my load on them and I don't want to do that, so I guess this is the next best thing for me to do.
So to get right into it...during the summer, end of July?, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Yes, cancer is such a scary word...but now a days with so much new medicine and technology they say cancer is nothing and curable, especially the type of cancer my dad was diagnosed with, Gastric Cancer, which is cancer in the stomach. My mom wasn't that surprised because first of all we're Korean and I didn't know this...but Asians are more proned to gastric cancer because of all the pickled food we eat. And secondly, my grandfather had the same gastric cancer, so you can't fool genetics. I was the first to find out because I was at the hospital with my dad.....when the docs told me he had a tumor in his stomach I kinda freaked because for some reason I automatically connected tumor with cancer, but at that time they didn't know it was cancer and just thought it was a tumor. So, they did a biopsy and low and behold..it was cancer. Then I freaked out a little more because I thought cancer?...cancer..oh crap...my dad is only 54...WTF CANCER?!
-Just to give a little background, my dad has been a pretty healthy man for all his life...no broken bones..no surgeries...he hardly ever got sick....exercised regularly and he took care of himself...but I guess that wasn't enough..like I said you can't ignore genetics.
After finding out the results...the Docs were pretty hopeful since he was so young and he had been healthy most of his life...except for the 30 years of smoking...*ahem*.......Their plan was to have him go through chemotherapy, shrink the tumor and then cut that sucker out...well his entire stomach would have had to been removed. So my dad had to have a total of 6 cycles of chemo...halfway through his oncologist wanted to scan him to see how the chemo was working. Results of the scan came out and hallelujah the tumor had shrunk....but....right next to the stomach was another tumor that had been growing. I thought to myself...where the hell did this piece of crap come from!? and then I remembered....the oncologist had mentioned to us that my dad's cancer was pretty advanced, so basically stage 4 and she didn't doubt that it had already spread but the cancer cells or whatever were to small to see in a scan...so then we ventured off to a different path.
Summer came and went in a blink of an eye....now it was October and the docs were trying to treat both cancers at the same time. I think for almost the whole month of October my dad and I were in the hospital. Thank God for my sister and mom. My mom would come every morning to give me food for the day and then my sister would stay with my dad on the weekends in the hospital when she could, which allowed me to take a break and get a full nights rest. October was a hard month for the entire family...the docs gave my dad, I think, the most aggressive chemo/treatment they could give him, given his health and etc....I think my dad slept for about half of the month of October. He would get soo nauseated that the only thing that prevented it was to give him meds that made him sleep practically all day. Towards the last week of October his oncologist wanted to CT scan him again to see if the treatment had had any effect. I remember the morning my dad's oncologist walked in. She grabbed the "care chair" and sat down next to my dad. My dad can't quite understand english so that's why I was there most/all the time. I saw her face and it didn't look like good news...I think I'm pretty good at reading faces because the next couple of words out of her mouth were like a ton of bricks on me. To cut it short, she said that she thought the treatment wasn't working and there was no other alternative treatment or anything else they could do for him at the hospital. So, her best advice was to just put him in hospice care and to keep him as comfortable as we possibly can. I asked for a time frame and she said a couple of weeks to maybe a month, but we sure beat that outta the water because it's now January.
To be honest after the beginning of November it's all just a blur....Thanksgiving...my birthday...Christmas...New Years..all a blur. Hospice care is pretty simple...nurse come once a week to check up on him...nurses are on call 24/7 and we have all the meds he needs at home. Things are simple I guess...as simple as it can get considering the circumstances.
**UPDATE**
2.4.2012
HAHA...so I totally forgot about this because a lot of things have changed...I forgot to publish the post above..-_- sighh... so my aunt came sometime in January to help out with things. She was originally suppose to go back to Korea on the 27th of Dec, but my mom told her not to so she stayed...and thank God she did. After the first week of January things started to go down hill. Long story short my Dad went to be with his maker on January 17, 2012 at 5:15 pm. God answered my prayers and my dad went as peacefully as one could go. We had service for him and then about an hr or so later he took his last couple of breaths. We had a wave of people come by the house..family...people from church. To be honest I didn't really know how to think or what to do, it all seemed so surreal to me. Even now I don't think it has hit me yet. There were a lot of things to do...call the nurse...call the funeral home...make arrangements for the service and what not. Luckily my mom had prearranged things so things went smoothly with no major obstacles in the way. The service/viewing and burial all went well, there were a lot more people than expected that came to both the viewing and funeral. I feel really grateful for all the people who helped, and for all the love and support and prayers we received. From the bottom of my heart I really appreciate each and every person who has been there for our family. I really don't know how we would have been able to go through a tough time like this without them. With all said and done I guess I'm not as sad as people expect...that's because I know my dad is in a better place with no more suffering and hardships. I know the past month was hard for him because he was in so much pain. So, now he is with his parents and his Maker and I will see him again.
So, I guess it's not a "good-bye" but a "see you later" Dad :)
