Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Bad News

I got some bad news yesterday, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He had cancer 4 years ago in his knee, it was growing on the bone. Part of the process of getting rid of it, they did a total knee replacement and he had no problems until recently. His hip, on his good leg started hurting, they had been doing x-rays but not seeing anything and his pain got worse. Finally they gave him a CT scan yesterday and saw the cancerous growth on his pelvis. It is the same cancer he had before. For right now the plan is to go in and cut the piece of his pelvis out with the growth. Then he will go through chemo again. The problem is why did it come back, what allowed it to come back, and is it anywhere else in his body. He is starting to have tests to find all that out now.

Last night, I received a phone call from a member of my parent's church. They told me they were praying for me and my family. I said thanks because it is nice to know that someone is thinking of you but it just reminded me of how useless the act of praying really is. What would be better is if these same people would volunteer their time, that they are now spending praying, to help my mom and dad out around the house and in his office, but that always seems like too much to ask.

4 comments:

PersonalFailure said...

I am so sorry. I hope this second surgery works.

There is a theory that cancer has stem cells like regular cells do, so they can float around undetected in the body and eventually spread the cancer again after treatment, but that's not much help to you.

Yeah, I would take help over prayer any day of the week. When my dad left my mom, left her with her own and my little sister's medical needs and no health insurance, members of her church added her to the prayer list- I was the one who had to drop out of college and work two jobs to help keep my mother and sister alive.

Asshats.

Anna Sethe said...

So sorry to hear that. But luckily modern medicine can be so much more helpful than prayers.

Kerri Love said...

Well I won't pray for your Father, but I will continue to give money to the cancer society.

My family has been devastated by this disease on all sides. My Dad's parents both died of it by the time I was 15. It would almost be funny since they were religious, ate well, didn't drink, didn't smoke and live on a farm where exercise is pretty much built in. Almost everyone on that side of my family has had or died from cancer. Right now my Brother-in-law is fighting leukemia so this hits home for me. My Grandmother first had breast cancer which she fought, it was 7 years later that my Mother noticed her stomach was to large to be normal and after tests and surgery they told us there was nothing they could do, her abdomen was filled with it.

If anything has made me doubt God, it’s cancer. No way could cancer be part of any damn plan nor can it be any form of messed up punishment. If “God” had kept my Grandmother from dying I might not have a problem with “God” since she was the only one that really kept my cousin and me in church. (side note, I put ‘my cousin and I’ and MS word told me to put ‘me’. I thought it was wrong to put it that way. I’ll never understand grammar)

So I guess instead of saying I’ll pray for you, I’ll say I can sympathize with you and I hope everything goes well for your Father in his surgery. Good luck.

FrodoSaves said...

I just want to say that I'm so sorry to hear that BeamStalk. I sincerely hope this second surgery proves more effective than the first and removes the cancer permanently. My best wishes to your father.