Cancer is probably the scariest words in the English language and nobody wants to hear it coming to them, specially from a doctor. About a year ago my dad started a comprehensive evaluation which was meant to check everything about him. I don't know if this was initiated by my mom or by the fact that he had just been labeled 100% disabled as a military veteran. The first big hurdle was his heart and we all had to hold our breath after one of the doctors thought one of his tests looked iffy, only to turn around and say he had the heart of a middle aged man at least as far as blockage goes.
Just when it all seemed too good to be true where even his lungs were ruled ok even when he had been smoking since the age of 13 and was about a two pack a day smoker, it was the ole finger in the butt that found that this man of steel did indeed have a weakness. As I have heard time after time, if a man lives long enough, he will end up getting prostate cancer and dad was no different, at the age of 70, he was told he has cancer in the prostate, the most common cancer for men.
Once diagnosed, it seemed to take forever to get started with a treatment plan. He was given several choices, including radiation 5 times a week for 40 days, an installment of radioactive pellets by the prostate which would be installed and they would do their thing and then removed after a certain amount of time, or a freezing procedure which would freeze and kill off the area deemed "cancerous". Dad chose the oldest most reliable procedure which is the 5 times a week for 40 days procedure and after a good while which got us through the end of the year in 2018, he finally started at the end of January. He had explained the procedure through the phone and in person over the last few weeks, and since I am in town this week, I decided to go with him to see as much as I could.
I want to say that even though I am not a fan of my younger brother not working continuously, I am glad he is around to keep dad company even though the two of them are like oil and water. At their best, they get along and my brother does what he has to in order to help the old Fart, but there is a lot of holding back because Dad knows how to get under people's skin yet my brother is as big as me and he could literally shake Dad into a broken bag of bones. Somewhere in their communication though, there is love and all their "chingados" and "dammits" are a lot of hot air.
The hospital/clinic was a very new-ish feeling building with a good sized waiting area, complete with a coffee maker and even a toaster oven, I guess if we were going to be there awhile. For Dad's appointment, we got there around 12:50pm and he went in by 1:15pm or so. I was fine sitting there taking it all in, even thought it kind of cool when Dad came over and opened the wheelchair they keep by the door and he sat on it and rolled back and forth for a bit while we sat there and waited. He was called in and I got more and more comfortable in that big creamy leather chair and before I knew it, I fell asleep. Next thing I knew, Dad was coming out from the back area and my brother snapped to attention and told me "hey, it's time to go, wake up." It took me a minute to snap and figure where I was, but I got up and jumped in the truck right at 2:00pm. My brother started driving and got as far as the HEB to get some gas, and then my dad said he felt good enough to drive, which he did. I did what I do best and fell asleep as soon as we got to the outskirts of town.
The doctor had told my dad he has treated something like 10,000 cases and they all have gone well, unless the client does not give up smoking. There is a connection with smoking and continued probability of cancer growing back, but after his fall in January which had him in the hospital for about eight days, he got scared into giving them up. Last time we had seen each other, he was going on 61 days of no smoking, so hopefully there will be no complications after next week when he gets done.
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