Life

I have been MIA for a couple of weeks now. Most of it has to do with the fact that life gets in the way and you have to prioritize. A few weeks ago my family received news that rocked our world and not in a good way.

We found out my dad has mesothelioma.

He has been ill since March and he was diagnosed with pneumonia and pleural effusion, which is fluid in the lining of the lung.  I googled the term and the website that I read said that it could be a sign of lung cancer.  Since my dad is in his eighties and I knew of him working around asbestos, I thought the odds were stacked against him.  But you still have hope and keep telling yourself that the fact he was having difficulty getting over the pneumonia and kept getting fluid in the lung was because of his age.  And with the right antibiotics and time he would get over it.  He has always been healthy, especially for his age.  So when an "open biopsy" was done and the results were that he had this disease, it turned our world on it's axis.

So we have been going to doctors and trying to see what we can do to get them more help for my brother.  I have a physically/mentally handicapped brother still living at home so it makes things more complicated.  Hopefully we can find a good home for him soon so my parents can concentrate on their own well-being.  For right now, we are pulling together to help them out in any way that we can.

I am asking that you send up prayers and positive thoughts on behalf of my parents, that they will be able to handle this burden with grace and peace may be found in getting the right care for my dad and brother.

So I am closing this blog post with a poem that I found regarding cancer:

What Cancer Cannot Do

Cancer is so limited...

it cannot cripple love

it cannot shatter hope

it cannot corrode faith

it cannot destroy peace

it cannot suppress memories

it cannot silence courage

it cannot invade the soul

it cannot steal eternal life

it cannot conquer the spirit

Unknown