August 17, 2014
By Erin B. Dempsey
Cancer is never a word
anyone wants to hear. Especially when that word is affecting someone
that you love with all of your heart. When you hear the word cancer
and then you hear it is in your loved one’s brain, such news can
nearly knock you to the floor. I know this because my dad was
diagnosed with glioblastoma on Labor Day of last year, and had I not
been sitting in a car with my sister upon hearing the news I would
have fallen to the floor. I know I could barely breathe, barely
move. I was crying and my sister was crying and we could barely get
ourselves to the right building to see my dad and just hug him.
After hearing the words “brain cancer” our world fell apart as we
knew it and because of those two words my family and I will never be
the same.
My dad, James Philip
Boyle, was a healthy, active, amazing sixty-five year old when he was
diagnosed with glioblastoma. Sixty-five years old. To me, my dad
was my hero. A living angel. My best friend. He was the life of
the party and the most intellectual man I have ever known. My dad
was the love of my mom’s life as he was hers; he was the apple of
his grandchildren’s eye; he was a newsman. I spoke with my dad
nearly every day and he was always, always a voice of reason amongst
the chaos. Brain cancer took all of that away from me and from my
family in less than twenty-four hours.
At the time of my dad’s
diagnosis, I am being honest when I say that I am not sure I even
really knew what a “brain cancer” diagnosis meant. I knew that
my dad’s situation was dire. I had read enough that day to know
that he (and all of us) were in for the fight of our lives. And I
knew that we had very little time to prepare before we needed to take
action.
Having to make life and
death decisions when you are in complete despair is a terrible
position to be in. I would never wish that on anyone. My dad, being
my dad, made the decision to immediately press forward. It was his
body, his life, his decision. We completely honored it even though
it was the beginning of a series of the worst nights of our lives.
Following the biopsy, when we had just found out that my dad’s
tumor was the worst of the worst, he suffered a terrible stroke that
left him unable to breathe on his own for nearly ten days. My dad
lost his ability to speak, to move the right side of his body, to
walk, to live the life that he loved, in minutes.
To see someone you love
in ICU, not being able to breathe on their own and possibly even
dying, when just hours before you were celebrating a holiday with
him, laughing with him and watching football with him, is something
that I am not sure I have ever wrapped my head around. I have come
to the conclusion that I may never truly understand it and maybe I am
not meant to. I certainly hope that nobody else has to feel this way
though. It is one of my greatest wishes and something that I will be
working for in my lifetime.
When I think about the
suffering my dad experienced after the biopsy, one of the things that
comforts me is that he was 100% ready to fight with whatever he had
and he was ready to do it at that moment. He went into that surgery
room as brave as anyone could ever be and he was brilliant. I am
thankful we had that night together before the surgery and I thank
God every day for the six months he was able to stay with us after
the surgery.
I am different now. We
are all different now. Losing my dad to brain cancer has moved me in
directions I never thought possible. I am always thinking about how
lucky we were to have that extra time with him. To shower him with
love and to make sure from the depths of our soul that he knew just
how much we loved him and how he had impacted our lives. Not
everyone gets that time before losing a loved one, and I am keenly
aware of that fact.
I miss my dad every
second. There are times when I feel like the wind has been knocked
out of me because I realize that I will never see him again. And
then I think to myself how many others must feel this way too, and
that being in this club is not one that anyone should ever have to be
in. Every time I would have to say goodbye to my dad, I would give
him the biggest bear hug and say: “Dad, I am giving you all of my
energy. Take all of it.” And I know that he heard me and
understood me when I said it. Now I am going to give all of my
energy to my family, to my friends and to help in the fight against
brain cancer. My life is not how I imagined it would be right now,
but it is beautiful, I cherish it and I will do my best to make it a
worthy one. My dad would have it no other way.
Join Erin's team and support her here.
No comments:
Post a Comment