An Inspiration For Cancer Pts...A Portrait of Support!

http://deafmomworld.com/dads-cancer-journey/
I won't say which one I am....but this is a portrait of my 86 yr old dad...undergoing chemo and a pix of my siblings with all our children.

My sister is such a writer...and I wanted to share with other cancer patients...not to let it control you. YOU control "it"!

My dad took a break for six weeks and feels so much better, but will resume after the six weeks are up. He is a tough Marine!
He's eaten very little in the two years...his white and red blood count cells are taking a toll on the bone marrow. He still insisted on continuing treatments, though his feet and hands were getting numb.
The pix was from Christmas Day. My uncle from Mo., who suffered from colon cancer drove up this past week to tell him he has got to take the advice of the Dr., and lay off the treatments for six weeks to build up his cells and bone marrow. That the numbing happened to him, also. Thank God for my uncle making that special trip to tell my stubborn Marine dad, he can take a six week break...no one else could tell him it was ok. Only someone who went through what he is going through.
He actually lost his hair...he had more than Blago...that guy could've passed for Elvis in his puppy days! Anyway, he's relieved now, temporarily...the woman my sister describes in the story was told to go home and die within 6 weeks. Plan her will, etc.
That was sixteen years ago....because she refused to give in, and kept on going with the treatments.
SemperFi, Dad!
If someone in your family gets cancer, surround them with family! Give them all the support and encouragement and love 'em like never before.
I am so grateful to have such a wonderful family. I can't imagine life without them.
You can beat it!

It sucks...my dad passed away from it 10 years ago. He got it from the Mills (Mesothelioma). He was healthy as a horse up-to-that-point. I had a touch(?) of it 5 years ago and all is well now. I get tested once a year and everything is fine. It really sucks when the doctor says the word cancer with your name in the sentence. I only hope the best for your dad and your family.

My dad, even though all his organs are fine, I still believe because he worked for the Lime Company (Mississippi Lime Co. based in Missouri) all his life...I feel because lime would blow around where he worked...he got that cancer (esophagus) from that place.
Before he was transferred to run the plant off the ports off Torrence Avenue, in a remote area...he ran it from a trailer. He would have to climb three or four stories high to fill up trucks with lime to take to the steel mills.
I mentioned it before, the place was closed down after he retired, and someone else took over from MO. The place was penalized for enviromental hazards. The craziest thing is, it is still there since 1965. Even the trailer!!!! The company gave it to the EPA to tear down.
I occasionally go there to rap with the guys that work at the pickling plant... that lime still is laying around on the ground.
The pond beside it was filled with stolen cars, and the cops wouldn't even respond when I witnessed a black BMV heading down - head first into the pond. I kept calling 911 - they ignored it.
I bet you can still find a lot of dead bodies and cars in that stool.

Anyway, I did mention to my dad...why not try and see if you can sue them for all the exposure. He claimed it didn't fall in that category. I guess because he has lived his life expectency, what's the point.
I am so sorry about your dad. I know my mom and dad won't live forever...but they provided for us in such a way to enjoy life by pinching pennies - never used credit cards, managed to feed the neighborhood kids...and my dad and mom were just so funny, even when they fought.
They sacrificed so that we would all have a good time in life, and that humor my dad posses, he is a corker.
When my mom chimes in...I wish I could start drawing cartoons worth looking at, reflecting them fighting while making us kids laugh.
All you have to do is bring up the "out-laws" that aren't here to defend themselves, meaning my great grams, gramps, uncles, etc.
This one is a tightwad, that one does that and this, or didn't.
The biggest thing is, when we get together, not just me, but I trained the grandkids how to get them rolling.
They'll bring up the Biesers vs. the Valle's. LOL

My dad taught me life is too damn short "not to make a joke out of it".

Yet..all along life he would hate funerals. "Why should I go to theirs when they aren't gonna be going to mine?"
Well, he outlived them....so I guess he had a point, there. He'll be fine; he is a fighter. Studies everything on his illness. I can't believe he's come this far.

Chuck, keep getting tested. We found out that my brothers who worked where he worked, or at the "pickling plant" have the same thing that can happen to them. Keep getting checked.
Take care of yourself, and make sure you keep GETTING checked. My dad waited 'til 2nd stage when I insisted and told him outright he had cancer, to go to the Dr. He was loosing weight and I could tell by the color of his skin.
He kept thinking he had the flu...but when I insisted, he thanked me. Stubborn mule.

You have a beautiful family,Ur. I'm lucky. No one in our family has ever had cancer. My best wishes for your Dad,You,and your family.

Thanks Artie...ok.. My hair was a mess...but who gives a shitz. The best Christmas we ever had, though we had to leave the Christmas Tree and go in the family room next to the kitchen.

My dad was too weak to go in the living room. I know he is feeling so much better, taking a break from the chemo as the dr. suggested.

My family - they drive from everywhere to make sure he gets to the chemo place, not trying to burden my sister in the foreground and my mom, with the grey hair...we all pitch in.
I just want my dad healthy again where he bitches instead of "being nice".

sparks wrote:

Thanks for sharing the picture of your family.

Cz I'm the one that made them reset the camera four times...cuz I couldn't stop laughing...had my uppers hanging out, pissing them off? Or, gave the finger? Then the finger with the uppers hanging half-azz out?
I finally got them to shoot the camera on the fourth try just to pizz them off.

My dad always called me his "favorite daughter, but we brought the wrong one home!" For years he made me believe I was adopted! Somsabitch...got my birth certificate and got a parakeet to pizz him back.

Glad you had family time over the holidays. We spent the week after Christmas with hubby's family in NJ - his parents are in their late 70s and have each had health problems. My family was over Christmas Eve, picking up a tradition my own parents started in 1955 - no tears this year (first time!)

Dear Karen: Can you believe you were on my mind this Christmas?

I thought about you while pixs were being taken...how you wish you had your parents.

I am so much more appreciative...but scared. I know someday I may be in your position. Unless I go before them. I can't imagine already, I'm thinking about how all our lives will change.

My daughter (the blond in the pix), flys in every Christmas...in her own words: "It's not Christmas unless we are at Grampa and Grammaw's!"

I just noticed how tight we are: everyone has their arms or touching each other in the pix...we do have a lot of laughs up there.

Fond memories of when it used to be two small shacks, and my dad one time, I found sitting next to an old stove with the pipe, making chicken soup...wanting to know why the hell I was intruding on "his space". I was up there and stopped in with friends on our way to ski.

I still picture the grandkids (3 at the time) laying/sleeping on the coffee tables, etc., in the shacks. We were running out of room as the rabbits multiplied.

Thus, they knocked them down and made room for all of us...everyone has their own bed. Except that chair my dad is sitting in, is MY CHAIR.


I called it "MY HEART ATTACK CHAIR". I slept on it while my mom nursed me back to health. Afterwards, I just made it my bed. I figured it beat making one in the morning, I could get up and make my coffee, sit outside and do whatever without waking up the other goofs.

Now it is called the "CANCER CHAIR". I have to wait 'til dad is ready to trot upstairs to go to sleep before I can claim it. Then again, many times, I'm left stranded on the couch cuz I fell asleep before him.

Anyway, I am glad Christmas turned out better this year for you. I know I will have to go through what you did...if nothing happens to me, before them. I just can't imagine life without them.



I'm glad "no tears" this year for you. Your parents would want it that way for you!

You're right - they always did all they could to make things easier for me (and my boys). My dad, after my mom died, was practically obsessive about cleaning out her stuff. I can still hear him saying, "What I do, you don't have to do after I'm gone." I wonder if he knew it was almost his time.
Even now, almost three years later, I still see something in the paper or on TV, and think about telling them. I lived my whole life (except college) no more than a mile from the house I grew up in. That wasn't planned, just where hubby and I found an apartment then a house to live in.

Karen, how soon after did your dad pass away after your mom?

What was the reason for them "passing," if you don't mind telling me.

Artie60438 wrote:

You have a beautiful family,Ur. I'm lucky. No one in our family has ever had cancer. My best wishes for your Dad,You,and your family.

You know what, Artie. Thank you. I'm the black sheep of the family, though my siblings covered my azz most of the time.

Like, when living in Dolton, I'd climb out that pansy-pink bedroom I had to share with my sister (the older one)...I would purposely leave the drawers open on her path to her side of the bed to trip her....I'd fart, she'd bitch, being deaf at the time, she had to turn the light on to read my lips (I could hear at the time)...she'd scream her lungs out, and I smelled nothing but onions out of her mouth...and she had the nerve to bitch about a "fart"?

I told her, "You smell like onions". She would retort with, "You and your G-D garlic".

I spent most of my high school days on top of the "breezeway" the connection between the house and the garage...sunbathing. Watching my mom walk down the side of the house all day hanging out the wash. Ironing..but I got caught I think I was grounded more during high school than the days I spent going.

I sure as hell can't figure out to this day how the hell I passed. Must have did some good, cuz I went on to work for the gubernmint, and went to college off and on.

I think it runs in the family...it took more than four years for my nephew (the one holding up Steven, the youngest over his shoulders) to finish,

"Gramps, damn college is hard...I think it's gonna take me six years instead of four...I partied the first year".

Turns out he never finished and makes more money than his peers who are working for 8.00 an hour. He simply is making too much money to go back to school to get his masters.

Making triple, threefold the money of those that he left behind. Wouldn't pay for him to go back.

Isn't that crazy? I guess specializing in business you can forget the courses that have no revelence to what your career will be.

What was the topic here? I rambled again.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. You and your dads attitude inspires me and I'm sure everyone else.

Ur, you write for the Chicago Trib?

BigFan wrote:

Ur, you write for the Chicago Trib?

Hell no. I used to write like my sister. I lost it. She told me the Chicago Trib wanted people who were under "40 yrs. old to start writing for the Chicago Tribune".

My sister, Karen, the barefoot idiot, said, "Why under 40?" I want to write about "OVER 40". Thus, she got the job.

She's a "go for it!" Many of her posts, blogs, stories appear in many books, magazines, etc.

She is presently in Florida, bare-foot skiing, working on a book.

I called her out on it: MENAPAUSE! :hehehe:

"MEN A PAUSE" is the perfect spelling. Take a Pause from MEN!

This is the letter I sent to everyone in my parents' and my Christmas card books in June 2008:



Dear Friends:

We used to laugh and say our life was boring, which is good. Boring means no one gets divorced, sick, or dies. Well, life hasn't been boring this spring. In March, my mom, Gloria, got the flu. It went into pneumonia and she passed away March 14. Dad said, “We’ll just have to get used to a new normal.” Three weeks later, my dad, Bob, had emergency surgery for a burst aortic aneurysm. He survived the surgery, but never really regained consciousness. He passed away on April 15. Now we’re facing a new, new normal.



You are getting this letter because you are in either my parents' or my address book, or both. I'm sorry if this is the way you are finding out about my parents’ deaths. Some of you getting this letter already know. Thanks to all of you for the prayers, thoughts, cards, and letters. It means so much to know we are in your thoughts.



As a family, the four of us are spending a lot more time together – no more spending the night or having supper at Grandma and Grandpa’s. Our memories help, but sometimes make us miss them more – we’ve lost such a big part of our lives.



Please stay in touch - you were important to Mom and Dad. I’m hoping to put together a remembrance book. If any of you have memories of them, please contact me - it would mean a lot if you would share your stories with us.



Love, Karen (Miller), and the boys

Valparaiso, IN 46383

That's so touching.

Though shocking, that both passed away within such a short time.

That had to be pretty rough for you, Karen.

I believe in my heart they are together and are watching over you.

Thank you. I remember when he was in the hospital saying she could have him forever - I just wanted him to stay with me a little longer!

I don't even know how to respond to that.

I would be a nut-case with loosing both parents in such a short time. I don't think I could handle it without a "grieving" counselor.

I give you credit for enduring that..I don't think I could handle it the way you did. You are such a sweet person.

You didn't deserve that, but I still believe they are watching over you.

I feel blessed; but reading your story makes me feel that "survivor's guilt" even though I'm not the one battling it. God Bless You. You are such a sweet heart...they are watching over you.

Which brings up another subject:

Were you the only child? I ask only because my father and my mom have accumulated so much over the years. They wrote down our names..whomever brought something into the house..

I used to buy crystal bowls, stuff I didn't think was of value...I bought at flea markets, and my mom said they were depression era cut glass. I just went out to get out...which is why when I had my heart attack they assumed I was at the flea market in Michigan...until they got the call.

I have so much stored up there, but I don''t want it, I don't care about it. But how do families divide up?

I say, "Let the grandchildren take what they want". Then the adults. But I don't want anything, not even my part of the will.

So, how do people do it, now'a'days? All it would do to me is serve memories I don't want something to remind me of the good times, other than pixs. I don't want the objects..I don't even think I want to go back to Christie Lake if they are gone...I don't want to be reminded the good times are "gone".

How do you guys feel about that? What were your experiences? My dad will beat this, but if he doesn't, my mom would not want to live there,...so many memorys...so many treasures. I wonder how she would deal with it. I'm thinking it isn't the right time to ask. Thank God I have four siblings..but what do we do with all they accumulated, what do we do with my mom who would not be able to live there without my dad checking everything? Wow, lot of things to think about.

They said never to take life for granted, and I think I did with my family.

Yes, I'm an only child. This was our Christmas letter that year:

The biggest changes in our lives this year were the losses of both of Karen’s parents – just a month apart this spring. I spent my summer vacation clearing out 48 years of memories in the house my dad built. My goals were to get it on the market before school started and not have it vacant over the winter. I listed it the day before school started and accepted an offer two days later – I know I was lucky in the timing.



Hubby’s job as an energy consultant ended in October when the company closed. Last week he started a new job doing much the same thing. He is working in downtown Chicago, taking the train each day. It’s a long commute, but hopefully he’ll be traveling only about one week a month instead of three weeks like in his old job.



Son #1 chose a college over the summer (yes, he graduates next year!) He will attend the University of NW Ohio in Lima. He’s majoring in high performance mechanics – making cars go faster. He got to run his beater Saturn on a couple tracks in the Midwest and did very well according to his instructors.



Son #2 is in 7^th grade and is in all honors classes. He still plays soccer, sings in the choir, and has joined the drama club. He had a part in the fall play. In January he will go to Indianapolis to sing with the All State Choir. He is really looking forward to our Christmas cruise…





Background: Mom and Dad got married in 1955. That first Christmas Eve, they were just going to have a quiet one. Then Aunt Ginny and her family unexpectedly stopped in. Then Aunt Freddie's family drove by, saw Aunt Ginny's car, and came up. They had such a good time; they agreed to do it “next year”. Well, there were 53 “next years”. Even through bickering, illness, and loss of both sisters, the rest of us showed up at their house every Christmas Eve. One of our questions was "What will we do about Christmas?"

The four of us are running away. I talked to my cousin , and she said to do whatever was best for us. As we agreed, it will be a hard Christmas wherever we are. We're going to take a Caribbean cruise. We leave Sunday, December 21 from Miami and will be gone a week. We will be in a different port (Grand Cayman, Isla Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel) almost every day, so we will be able to keep our minds off things. Or, we can just hold on to each other.



I found two small fiber-optic trees for our cabins and I will pack some (too many!) small gifts. Hubby and I took a cruise for our honeymoon and are looking forward to sharing one with the boys. One will be 18 - old enough to go in the casino, but can't drink on the boat. I think I would rather have him drink than gamble! The other one will get a chance to swim with dolphins and is looking forward to partying in the Teen Club. Our tentative shore excursions include parasailing, snuba, and an adventure in Belize that includes rappelling and a zip line.



We are really looking forward to our Christmas vacation – hope your holidays are perfect!



Love, Us

My WWII Brave Dad passed away this a.m. He fought this esophagus cancer that went thru his lungs, and created tumors in the brain.

For 2-1/2 yrs...he fought it.

Anyway, it's a blessing my last visit was how we "borrowed" from the fields...we NEVER STOLE!

He's in peace now...worried about who was going to fertilize his lawn this spring.

Imagine, of all things!