The Beginning of the End

Yesterday, February 1, 2011, on our daughter's 6th birthday, we got the word from my wife's oncologist that her liver is failing and there's nothing left to do. She is in her last days and very soon will die at the age of 37 from a cancer called pheochromocytoma. Our family is in grief to lose such a prominent member. I don't want to be widowed at 38. I shouldn't be.

I try to explain to my 6 year old daughter and 3 year old son that Mommy is very very sick. My daughter asks if it's the winter making her sick. Since we've had such a cold and long winter, it certainly seems that way.

Soon my wife will be discharged from the hospital and we will begin hospice care for her at home.

Your health is so important. Don't take it for granted and realize whatever crap is going on in your life, it's not really that bad. Relish in the fact that you have the chance to learn from it and come out a better person.

A miracle

A miracle is just another way of saying the odds are really low. They can still happen, but not very often. A miracle should surprise us since by definition it's supposed to be a rare occurrence.

Is it not a miracle that we can sit inside a steel cage and drive our bodies at 60 miles per hour and do it in a group of other drivers without harm? Is it not a miracle we can get from one coast of the country to the other in a matter of hours and by doing it five miles in the air? Is it not a miracle the sun burns as bright and as hot as it does to sustain life on our planet and will continue to do so for billions of years? If a miracle is supposed to be amazing things, those things are all miracles and they happen everyday.

When a rare occurrence becomes common as we continue to evolve and master control over things in nature, the idea of what was once a miracle changes from something that used to be impossible. Because of this, we take many wonderful things for granted and look for the new miracle that impresses us. Why not once a miracle, always a miracle?

At this point in my life, our family needs a miracle.

Lifts

Everyone is shorter at home. At home, you don't have your shoes on so you don't notice. If you had your shoes on all the time at home, you notice how tall you are.

At work, you don't notice how tall you are until you take your shoes off. Then everything is a little bit taller than you without your shoes.

My wife went out to Bethesda, MD to the NIH as a follow up to her brain surgery in October. We knew before going out there, that her health was declining - she was getting worse, not better. We also knew there was a strong possibility that the series of scans they would do would find what we feared.

Before I went to bed Monday night, I realized the date come morning would be 1-1-11. Our species appreciates patterns such as this. Very gimicky, kinda neat, something fun. I also realized it would probably be the date we would get the worst news for our family and I wasn't going to need a repetitive numerical scheme to remember that date.

The call came about 3:30p from my wife. With tremor in her voice, speech that I could tell she had been crying, before she could say anything, I knew. She got the words out telling me that there's not much more her doctors can do for her. She asked them if she should prepare for the end and they told her that she should.

My wife is only 37 years old and her prognosis is terminal cancer. We have two kids, a son who is 3 and a daughter who is about to turn 6. The tragedy in this, the real hurt is she doesn't get to see them grow up. If my wife could last another 15 years, I think she'd be more ready and not as sad. I think we'd feel blessed if we could witness together the two of our kids growing up.

Of course I'll take any time life gives her.

I love my kids, I really do but there are some days I think I'd trade them in for a 25 cents off coupon for deodorant.

More rants on government

All of the governments are cockroaches and WikiLeaks is the flashlight. It's not going to take them down, but it'll make them scatter for awhile and hopefully we can get some peace.

A politician makes his living saying what government can do for you; emphasis on the word SAYING.

You've Got Mail

My daughter does this thing where she sits at her Tenda, writing a "letter." This letter has a few words on it but mostly pictures of things she loves: birds, cats, family, tv shows. She'll wrap up the letter into roughly what's an envelope size. She will then run past you and throw the letter at you in a delivery fashion. It'll float in the air for a few seconds then land near you. Then she'll watch from a distance as you open it and read the letter from her.

Social Security

Social security will fix itself by eventually raising the retirement age to equal the average life span.

More Political Observations

Liberals need a lesson in economics. Conservatives need a lesson in conservatism. You can't force someone to do something and expect them to like it.

Election Day

When money is forced, it loses its value.