Dad Update 4/8/2014

The week post-chemo is always difficult, and this last week has been no exception. Dad isn't feeling good, he is extremely tired and having headaches- bad headaches. If I could trade places with him, I would do just about anything, anything to make his pain stop. 

I was on the phone most of yesterday with different nurses trying to figure out what was causing these headaches and what we could do to fix them. You know, because as a non-medical person, I just assume everything can be fixed by some sort of medicine. We've known since Dad started his new treatment of Avastin that high blood pressure and headaches were a common side effect, so Mom and I have been monitoring his pain and blood pressure lately. It's almost comical for me to be calling a nurse to talk through blood pressure and pulse readings, because I literally have no idea what those numbers even mean- or what would be considered normal. There have been lots of sleepless nights and painful days for Dad, and we are hoping to figure out what is causing the headaches, so we can figure out how to treat them. I told him to just hang in there with us and I would figure out how to make the pain stop, and I hope I didn't promise something that I can't deliver. 

On top of all the pain Dad is experiencing, we've also continued to deal with headaches associated with insurance and billing. It's those sort of things you don't think about when someone is diagnosed with something like cancer, something that you wouldn't think would consume so many hours of your night. It's something that I never wanted Mom or Dad to deal with or think about, something I never thought I would know so much about. I'm pretty sure some of the hospitals know my Dad's account and my name by heart, because I don't pay a penny more than we owe and I also make them provide billing details for each claim. Yes, I'm an auditor by day and by night. 

People have been asking how we are doing, how Dad is doing- and my common reply, "We are ok." It's not great, it's not wonderful, I'm not going to lie and tell you it's been an easy couple of weeks, or an easy 6 months, because that would be far from the truth. We are trying to make it one day at a time, and lately my therapy from it all has been running.

I've been running a lot lately, which is a little weird because I use to hate running in high school and college. Dad loves being outside- mowing grass, being in the garden, or working in his shop- so a little bit of me feels like I'm running for Dad. I know Dad would give anything to be able to do all those things again, and I have no doubt that one day he will! Running also takes my mind off of things for a little bit, and I've always said that it's much cheaper than therapy. 

I ask that the prayers keep coming- prayers for a good MRI result in the next couple of weeks, prayers Dad's headaches get better, and prayers that we all continue to find strength to make it through it all. 

"Often God will ask us to do something that the human mind [considers] not logical. But God has not called you to walk in his logic. He called you to walk in [his] Faith." It's a daily struggle, but I am focused to walk in his faith- because God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called.