well, hell

guess it's time to keep track.

Dad sent me an e-mail yesterday, asking me to call him at home when I had time to talk. I planned on calling him tonight, but my step-sister called me first. Basically, he's dying.

He's had melanoma for the past 8 years or so. Had several spots removed, some pretty big surgery on his face. Seems it came back with a passion. He has a couple of skin lesions on his head that I guess he didn't realize was melanoma and so it's turned into multiple malignant melanoma. He's got it all over.

both lungs
both kidneys
somewhere on his spine, hip and shoulder
Liver
gall bladder

He actually doesn't have it in his brain, which is good, I guess. He's in a lot of pain (lungs, kidneys, liver) and the codeine wasn't doing anything for him, so they switched him to morphine last night. When I talked to him tonight, he said he's been asleep for the past 18 hours or so. He said he hasn't slept much in the past week from the pain. He's out of it, his brain isn't working all that well, he has a hard time with his sentences and he sounds exhausted, which makes sense.

He says he's planning on starting chemo as soon as the insurance comes through. They plan on doing 15 minutes a day 4 days a week. I'm not sure how long they plan on doing that for. They say the chances of the chemo working are about 15%.

He turned 65 in September. It's a lot farther than he expected to make it. Says he's not afraid of dying but is having a hard time with his emotions. Don't know what to think of that.

Turns out my step-mother is undergoing chemo for breast cancer right now. She will have her 5th of 6 treatments this week, they are 3 weeks apart. I think all of hers is precautionary as she had a lumpectomy and I guess they got all of it.

Guess I had better tell the rest of the few relatives we have. I'll update when I know more, which probably won't be that often, knowing they way our relationship has gone.