Ugh, this thread is both awesome and terrifying...
My father is 3 years into a battle with cancer, and I lost my grandfather in 2008 to the same cancer. Dad has prostate and kidney cancer, the prostate cancer has spread to his bones, and the kidney cancer spread to an adrenale gland that was removed, as well as the kidney.
So Dad and I are spending more and more time together, we are closer than we have ever been, and I help out however I can. I was working in Tennessee in 2010 when we got the news Dad was cancerous, and in 2011 I was laid off. I had a decision to make, I had offers for work in states far away from my beloved home, and I had been roaming the country for college and work since late 2008, I was tired of moving, and packing, unfamiliar faces, new places, and was ready to come back to my home. I spent a few months in South Carolina with my lovely lady Alissa, a hometown friend turned relationship I had reconnected to, and she deployed overseas with her AF unit, I packed up and headed home to help out the parents. My sister also has a mental disease that makes her ineffective as a reliable person, to put what's going on nicely. So I was much needed, and greatful to be back home. I help out any way I can, and where I can. Grandma is approaching 90, and Dad is at this point terminal. We are just kicking the can down the road with treatment, but doing the best we can. He hurts a lot, and can't do much anymore. This has greatly affected my Grandmother, who will probably be there when we put my Father into the ground next to his father, my hero of a grand father. Spending time with her, and helping here is a huge part of what I can do to help out Mom and Dad, as Grandma worries to know end, and has no understanding of new technology, I get new information much faster then she would, so when Dad goes to Seattle for a surgery, I go hang out at Grandma's and relay messages as I get them. Which greatly comforts her, and eases the burden on Mom from having to step out and make 10 phone calls to Grandma.
Grandpa, I was blissfully unaware of the issues, until I lost him, and got that faithful call in 2008 he had passed away. I am not making the same mistakes this time with Dad. I was just 21, and cared about me, I couldn't have given two shakes about what was going on outside me and freedom of the world. So I lost valuable time to learn and experience things that only Grandpa could have taught me, including things like raising chickens, which he had done when he was small during the Great Depression. The only highlight I have to my experiences with Grandpa, he taught me how to work, and he taught me to make your own success. He would run circles around Dad and I on any project, and daytime or night time, if it needed done, it would be done. He was a self taught engineer, WWII vet, and he worked hard to give his family what he could not have. He built rooms onto his home, because he needed more room, he wired the house, he did it all.
Cancer is evil, but sometimes the things that come from cancer can change you in the most positive of ways. I now run my own business, as well as work full time for a local company, and that wouldn't have happened with out cancer happening. I also spend so many more hours at Grandma's, helping out, and relaying messages, and who doesn't love being spoiled by Grandma! Let alone, the stories I may never have heard if I wasn't there using my gift of gab to take her mind endlessly somewhere else, then this dark abomination of cancer and my Father's battle with it. I learned a lot about those around me, and that I need to be involved in my family's life. I will always be there for my family, no matter the time, place or need. And do what I can. All of you touched by cancer, directly or indirectly have a huge war to face against cancer, fight the good fight, help when you can, and always have a reason to smile. If death is the only solution for the end of suffering from cancer, because you can no longer stave off the consequences of cancer, then remember the good times. Because there are many, many good times, even though cancer brings so many bad times to life. Never give up, and there will always be a good time to be had in there.
I hope I have offended know one, and sorry for the ramble, but I have a lot to say on cancer, and prevention, some of it politicized, and I am trying to avoid that, some of it preachy, again avoiding that, I am just passionate about it, and I want no one to suffer at this evil hand of cancer, so thanks for reading, and by all means, Chicken on!
