An Anniversary of sorts.....

A year ago this morning, my life was the way it used to be....by a year ago tonight I knew my father was dying. It has been a very long year.......he spend 28 days in ICU, a week in the main hospital, and 5 weeks in rehab at Drake. Fortunately he doesn't remember any of it but the very end when he was at Drake. When he got home in July, I doubted he would make it to his birthday in September, but after his birthday passed, I began to stop thinking that he might not make the next "milestone"....Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mom's birthday, Easter....and now the one year anniversary of his diagnosis.

A year ago they told us he had an incurable cancer. A year ago they told us he was in complete kidney failure. A year ago (minus a few weeks) they told us he had a stroke.

He isn't the same person he was a year ago. None of us are the same person. There are times I resent the hell out of the chaos this has thrown into my life. Days when I resent that my parents have become such an integral part of our lives (I had worked so hard to keep a buffer between us since they don't approve of so much of our livestyles). Days when I am so pissed that my mother thinks she has any right to tell me that my kids should be in school because I can't possibly be teaching them what they need to know....she is right, I can't HALF of what I should be doing with them because my father now gets at least 2 days out of my week, if not three (depending on if he has an extra appointment with some specialist or not). But there are days when I am grateful for the time I have been given, to say a slow goodbye. Days when I hope by example my children learn that they have a responsibility to their parents and that even when it isn't fun, when it is inconvient, when it interferes with something they would much rather do, that the bond of family wins.

I never leave my dad without telling him that I love him, something I had probably never told him since the day I left home at 18. The younger kids have formed a bond with him that they would have never had if this hadn't happened. The older kids have learned a lot about the power of faith and prayer.

He has an appointment with his oncologist this Friday to determine if they will do more chemo. He goes to see a GI doctor next Wednesday to see if they can figure out why he is having trouble swallowing sometimes and why he has coughing fits. He is going to have his shoulder x-rayed to see why it causes him constant pain. He is to the point that the oxycotin doesn't help with the pain.

I know there other lessons in all of this.....some days I really ponder what it is and why I am not completely getting it. And I wonder, if a year from now, I will sit and post that we have made it to another anniversary with Dad still with us.