Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

Last year at this time, I was stumbling around in a numb haze, struggling to hold on to some semblance of competence and trying not to cry at the drop of a hat. I was trying to be strong for my kids, and trying to figure out how to talk my stubborn dying husband into getting treatment, and that giving the ACA marketplace another chance would be worthit. My entire world had literally crumbled around me, and I was facing the reality of losing my husband and facing the rest of my life without him. And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing.

It was horrible.

He had resigned himself to die, because he didn't want to impoverish his wife and children seeking treatment that might not work. Because we didn't have insurance. And worse, we found that the Central Texas county we live in had no resources for uninsured patients to get cancer treatment. A neighboring county, Travis, did, but we could potentially wait six months to a year before even seeing a doctor. And by that time... the Husbandly One would be dead.

It took a screaming fight to get him to see reason. To get him to see my gastroenterologist, get a colonoscopy that found the rectal tumor that was causing him so much pain. The gastro recommended an oncologist, who at first refused to see us because... we were uninsured. But... we could pay.

We ended up having to physically go to the office of the oncologist and talk to the staff there, face to face. To show that we were real people, that THO was determined to fight for his life. That we could afford to pay for this, and were willing to get insurance, but we needed to know which ones they took because we weren't going to take any risks with this. We'd had enough of not having the right insurance for the doctors we needed to see, or coverage for needed treatments. We needed information and recommendations... and they gave it to us.

We signed up for an ACA gold plan that night. Best move we ever made. They have covered everything as far as THO was concerned.

It's been terrifying. And hard. Gods, it's been hard. He's been in pain, in agony at times. Colorectal cancer is... it's not just the pain. It's what it takes away from you. Your dignity. Your self worth. All the shaming your parents did when they were toilet training you? It comes back. Every horrible, silly, ridiculous, mean, or otherwise thoughtless thing they ever said, don't you want to be a big boy? Big boys don't make messes in their pants or beds! Big boys don't stink! Big boys don't poop in the tub, on the carpet, big boys control themselves and wait until they're on the potty... that's just something parents say to encourage their kids while potty training, right?

Okay, take that to being an adult and having no control over your sphincter, because you've got a tumor there that's messing up the signals to your brain that tell you it's time to pinch the big loaf. Except you can't. And it hurts. Like someone's shoving a red-hot roofing nail into your ass. And when it finally lets go, you can't stop it.

He was... humiliated sometimes. He hated wearing adult diapers. He hated having me clean him up, or change the bed, or having to clean the carpet because he just couldn't get to the bathroom in time. But I did it, because he's my husband, he couldn't help it, I love him and... he'd have done the exact same thing for me.

He couldn't eat, either. He was massively anemic, and dropped down to 106 pounds from a maximum of 165 just a mere six months before. In January, I ended up rushing him to the emergency room in Kyle, after having to listen to him scream in pain while sitting in a bathtub. I thought he'd ruptured something, or had gone septic. Instead, I found he was merely being an over-achiever by having both an anal abscess and a fucking kidney stone all at the same time!

He was in the hospital for 3 days on that alone.

It was lucky he'd had an iron infusion just the week before, because they wouldn't have been able to do the surgery on his abscess otherwise.

When he got home, we had to wait for the drain to be removed from his abscess before he could start chemo. And we were trying Ensure to help him gain weight.

It wasn't working. You know what? Ensure is fucking disgusting. It smells horrible and tastes even worse. I gag just thinking about that stuff. We gave up on them and started him on Bolthouse Farms smoothies, and you know what? That saved him. I really think those smoothies saved his life, because he loved them and drank them all the time. He finally started putting on weight, and they didn't make him sick when he started chemo. It was awesome.

As he started improving, my anxiety eased, and I didn't feel so hopeless. I still, even now, have moments at night when I hold him and feel tears stinging my eyes, because.... I'm still terrified of losing him. Before this, I intellectually knew that one day, one of us would die and the other would be left behind, but it was far away in some nebulous future. Both of us have parents who lived into their eighties, there was no reason to think we'd not be the same way.

But then this happened. And suddenly, that nebulous future is a lot closer. There's an expiration date that is a lot closer than I'm comfortable with, and while the treatment has worked, and the Husbandly One now has more time... I'm very much aware it's not as long as I'd once assumed.

I am grateful we have more time. And I will take every single minute of it. He is the love of my life. My very favorite husband. And... I just don't know how I'll do it without him when that inevitable time comes.

But for now? He's better. He's almost back to his old self. He's almost 140 pounds. And he's beating it.

I'll take it.

I wanted to post last night, but I was just too wiped out. We made an unexpected trip to Houston yesterday.

It was an emotional roller coaster we were on yesterday. My dad was suddenly much worse, so we dropped everything to go to Houston, even forgetting to call the friend whom we had arranged would keep the kids if we had to suddenly leave.

You know, we should have sent the Impossible Son in to see him the moment we got there. Because Dad was semi-conscious and barely lucid. I got him to open his eyes and to look at me when I came in, talking to him and stroking his face. He answered me, though it was an effort. He's got pneumonia again, and I know how that feels. About forty-five minutes or maybe an hour after we arrived, my mom finally sent the Impertinent Daughter and the Impossible Son in to see him. He opened his eyes for Miss Priss, responded to her when she told him she loved him. But... when Mr. Impossible came up and piped, "Hi Grand-Daddy! I love you. I wish you were awake so I could talk to you. Okay, bye," and he skipped out of the room.

It was like someone had flipped a switch. Dad's eyes popped open, and moved, looking around. He looked surprised and mumbled exhaustedly, "Was that the Impossible Son?"

"Yes," said my mother, looking greatly surprised and with tears in her eyes. "Do you want to see him?"

"Yeah," he said, and tried to turn on his side.

So, we called the Impossible Son in, and my dad saw him and reached for his hand, and they stood there and chatted for a bit. Well, the Impossible Son chattered, and Dad just smiled, nodded, occasionally trying to answer him though it was clear it was a huge effort. But he was making it, for Mr. Manzie. Then my very sneaky son said, "I was eating some of your Push-Pops, Grand-Daddy. If you don't eat one, I might not leave you any."

"You can have all the grape ones, " my dad said with a grimace. "Don't like 'em."

"No," said my son, "I'll eat the orange ones."

"You will not... those're... mine," my dad said, getting a little color in his cheeks.

Nothing like arguing with a seven year old over frozen treats to give someone the will to live, I guess.

Dad had his orange treat, and he and my son discussed the little cars Mr. Manzie had brought along. My son didn't stay in there long. He'd leave for a while, then come back with something else to show Grand-Daddy, or a question to ask, and it kept Dad animated for a while.

I'm glad Dad was able to pull out of it for a bit, but you know, he's getting so... well, he's too weak to get out of bed now. He spends most of his time sleeping, or staring out the windows, looking into the backyard he loves so much. He won't watch TV or listen to music. He hears other music now that we can't hear. When everyone bustled off to grab towels, or to check on the kids, or to get more water, etc, and we were alone, he'd look at me and smile, squeezing my hand as best he could, but sometimes, his eyes would go distant, and I knew he wasn't really with me anymore, and that's... well, that's just part of the journey he's on. He's letting go. He's not really here with us so much as he just comes back for brief visits. Like he did yesterday with my son.

He actually livened up enough to play with the Impossible Son. The Husbandly One blew up a couple of rubber gloves and tied knots in the end, and Mr. Impossible would bat one to Grand-Daddy, who would catch it as best he could, or would wait until his grandson handed it to him, and then he'd snap it back to Mr. Impossible with his fingers. I had to leave the room, because I knew it would exhaust him, but the sheer enjoyment in his eyes, and how happy my son was to be playing with him... I know he's going to remember it for the rest of his life. So, I had to leave the room to resist the urge to put a stop to it, to tell Daddy to save his strength. Because I realized... what would he be saving it for, if not for moments like these?

When we left, and I leaned over to kiss his forehead, I said, "You know, a simple, 'would you come visit, I miss you,' would have sufficed. You didn't have to scare Mom and the girls half to death to get me here. We were coming next weekend, you know."

He smiled. "Practice run." He was already sleepy.

I felt suddenly very scared, and very five years old. "Don't go anywhere just yet, " I said lightly.

"I can't even get to the bathroom," he said, then smiled to show he understood what I was really saying. "I'll try, but... they're waiting for me, you know," and he didn't have to say who. Because I knew.

So I just kissed the top of his head again, listened to my daughter tell him a joke, "Why did the chicken cross the road? EEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRK->BANG<... we may never know," which made him snort and laugh weakly, and then he waved, his eyes already drifting closed... and we left.

So, I'm exhausted. I'm worn. I'm frazzled. And I feel like I'm in suspension, sometimes. This will happen in its own time, I know that. I am reassured, too, that he isn't in a great deal of pain, and that for the most part, he's comfortable. In the meantime, though, it's like having my emotions wrung out on a regular basis, and the stress is getting to me. And my stress is getting to my husband and my children.

I think... I think I will go work in the garden. Maybe getting my hands dirty will help me restore my sense of balance. Because, I feel so very out of kilter, lately.

Saturday night for my dad was worse than I had been led to believe. I won't go into detail, but...

*sigh*

He's refusing all nutrition now. He can no longer swallow, and even what he gets through the feeding tube in his stomach ends up aspirated into his lungs. They'll let him go home, straight into hospice care, and they'll try to keep him at home unless his condition worsens to the point where he needs to be in the hospice facility, and they'll try to keep him comfortable there.

I find myself wishing very much that the Husbandly One was home right now.

I'm very tired tonight. I got over-heated taking my kids to a late afternoon soccer clinic with the local pro-team, the Austin Aztex, and came home feeling absolutely crummy. My temp was 102 when I got in, oh yay.

Then, the Practical Sister called.

I have come to terms with a few things regarding my dad since yesterday, after talking to my mother. He's not doing well, and he's having a very hard time since having had the stents put in. It's very hard for him to eat.

Well, my sister was very upset when she called, and it took some time to calm her down, but finally, she said she wanted me to call our mother and talk with her again, in order to see what conclusion I came to after talking to her. So, I did.

Dad has stopped eating.

I know he's frustrated. I know he's tired. Very, very tired. He's tired, and he's upset, and he's anxious, because he can't eat without throwing up now. It's exhausting him. And he's in pain. He's in pain, and he's having a hard time taking the pain medication they've prescribed, because it just comes right back up again. This is making him very short-tempered, and he's taking it out on Mom.

To top it all off, he's also nauseated almost all the time. Part of this is because he's not following the doctor's orders. He's supposed to sit up, practically ram-rod straight, when he eats. Then he's supposed to walk or just remain upright for about 30 minutes afterwards to allow gravity to do what his esophagus can no longer do, which is make the food go down. But he can't. He's just... too weak, too tired, too... just too.

You could say his quality of life right now sucks.

If he doesn't eat, he's going to get weaker. If he doesn't eat, well, he's diabetic...

I am trying to see this from his perspective. He's 85 years old. He's already been through treatment for this cancer once, treatment that gave him 8 years longer than they ever expected him to have. Now he's being poked and prodded by doctors, and it's all just making him feel worse.

I don't want my dad to suffer. But I can see that my sisters aren't ready to let him go. They don't see it the way I do, they don't see him the way I do. As far as they're concerned, he's the Unbreakable Marine. He's outlived his own father, and his uncles, and most of his cousins. I had said at first that the way things were going last week, that on the one hand, we'd be lucky to see another Christmas with him, and yet on the other, knowing how stubborn he is, we could be celebrating Father's Day with him next summer.

I'm beginning to think I'll be lucky if I get to hear him sing Happy Birthday to me in that goofy little way of his one more time. And you know, guys, after that, I'll be 45 forever, because there will be no more birthdays for me.

Oh, gods, my dad is dying, and my sisters have no fucking clue, because they don't want it to be real.

Well, I don't want it to be real, either, but... someone's gotta face the music, I guess. Might as well be me. I'm just... not ready yet.

I don't think I ever will be.