Cancer is the new Flu

Sitting in class on Wednesday night my phone beeped with a text message from my husband.

‘They found cancer in my Dad’

My heart dropped. With everything going on with my Aunt, my Baba and the 2 other cancer surgeries in our families in the last month, I had completely forgotten about my FIL’s situation. He has had on-going, but not overly serious heart problems for several years. About a month or so ago he went in for his regular scope to check on his ticker. During the scope, they told him they found polyps in his esophagus that they wanted to check, just to confirm they weren’t anything serious. About 2 weeks ago, he went in for his biopsy. Wednesday- the doctor called with the news that the biopsy had confirmed cancer. SMIL called us to relay the news. The doctor said that he thinks they’ve caught it early, but that we won’t know what stage the cancer is until he gets further tests and scans.

Along with feeling guilty for forgetting about this situation, I was immediately concerned for Bub, but he assured me that he was OK and that it just hadn’t sunk in yet. His step-brother, who was originally on his way to see F and SMIL when he got the call that FIL didn’t want to see anyone, decided to stop in at our place and make sure that Bub was doing OK with the news. I was glad to hear that someone thought about him and that he wasn’t alone with this life-changing news.

Bub continued to do ok until today. I sent him a text this morning and he told me he was at home (which he hadn’t been when I left for work). I called to see what was up (sick, fired… ??) and he said that he just couldn’t be around anyone. He told his boss what was going on, and was told he could take the day. I’m worried about him because now he’s sitting at home alone brooding, which is probably just making it worse.

FIL is taking the news very hard. Unfortunately, he’s a glass half empty kind of person, so I’m sure he has himself dead and buried already. All sicknesses are the end of the world for him, and he’s a slight hypochondriac, so now that he’s been given news like this that actually confirms that he’s seriously sick, I can just imagine that he feels his world literally crashing in around him. He doesn’t want to see anyone and hasn’t spoken with anyone other than his SMIL since he found out.

I’ve already lost an uncle to esophageal cancer so I know how serious it can be. I’ve done a bit of Googling (since I can’t get information from FIL) to get myself informed on what the next steps are, treatment options, prognosis etc. and what I’ve found doesn’t inspire a lot of hope. Apparently, one of the first places it spreads to is the liver. Great. Another go around with possible liver cancer.

So, in the last 4 months between our families we’ve had 5 cases of cancer. Through my IL’s alone, 3/5 siblings on my MIL’s side are battling cancer, and now my FIL on the other side.

However, I’m not going to panic. Everyone is doing ok thus far (even my Aunt has been transferred out of the cancer center and back to a regular hospital after her condition improved exponentially). I’m going to be strong for my husband and encourage everyone to take it one day at a time. We can’t do anything until we have the results of FIL’s scans. The doctors believe that they have caught it in the early stages so that hopefully means it’s operable. We can’t get ahead of ourselves and we just have to make decisions and deal with things as they come. They man only just turned 50, is strong and healthy otherwise and is a good candidate to fight. If we can get it before it spreads, I think we’ll be ok.

I’m just hoping that I can get home early today so that Bub doesn’t have to be alone. He sounds so down and even refused to cook tonight (seriously… that’s HUGE… he LOVES to cook) and said “I’ll just order us a pizza or something”. I wish his Dad would be open to seeing people because I think it would be good for everyone.

Other than that, the only thing I feel I can say is F*ck Cancer.