It has been almost a year since I last blogged and so much has changed since then. I haven’t posted about this since last October in this post, but that was really the beginning of it all. My heart can’t take going through all of it right now, but read that post and you will understand.
Soon after my dad was diagnosed, just four days after Thanksgiving, my stepfather fell in his home and was severely injured. He went to the hospital in Potsdam and when he was stabilized, he was moved a few weeks later to the big hospital in Syracuse, NY. He was there until March and then he was moved to a home in Rome, NY. For weeks, he was virtually comatose and there is residual brain trauma and severe physical trauma.
Now, in the midst of all of this my dad started his treatments and they seemed to go rather well for him. Limited side effects, allowing his life to continue as normal. He continued to go to court, as a lawyer NOT a defendant! It was an infusion that he got every three weeks for 12 weeks and then it was a time-release thing for up to a year.
Not long after my stepfather’s accident, my mom passed out and was taken to the ER. They thought it was just her blood sugar so she was treated and released. In January, it happened again and this time they discovered that she had an extremely advanced Stage IV cancer trifecta… lung, liver, kidney. She was in Potsdam for a couple weeks and then moved to Syracuse for weeks of radiation. She did a partial round, but wasn’t well enough to come home for a while. When she did get out, she stayed with my brother and I (I was staying with him at this point) for a few weeks, gained her strength and wanted to go home. A few weeks later she was back in the hospital. About a week and a half later, she passed away.
After that was dealt with, I came back to AZ. I was here for two weeks when my father’s horrendous headaches (a recent development) landed him in the hospital. Just days prior, he had had a PET scan and it was discovered that the melanoma was reducing marginally and that there were no new spots. This was an epic win. However, when he went back in the hospital, they did another PET scan and found two new, aggressive tumors. They had manifested and appeared from zero to sixty in about 10 days. And they were inoperable. They gave him a week to live. I flew home, got to him Sunday afternoon. He died at 0430 the next morning.
Two parents in five weeks. I have been reeling ever since. And this is just the nutshell version. It has been a long and hard road and many days, I stumble.
With love,
Kim
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