My Biggest Trial and My Biggest Accomplishment
This post took a lot of thinking for me. I have three things in my life that I would consider to be my biggest trials of life. After a lot of thinking I decided it was the process of my Dad having cancer and finally losing him.I think it was the biggest because it was such a long process with many emotions. My Dad was diagnosed with colon cancer in May of 2000. I remember the phone call like it was yesterday. I didn't know much about cancer. Cancer wasn't SO prevalent then. After getting off the phone with my Dad I immediately called one of my Brothers. He said why don't you come over, he had pulled some information off the internet and said I should read it. Funny I think now, how also we didn't use the internet as much. Now I would have just looked it up myself online! I got that call from my Dad on a Tuesday and he was going into surgery on Thursday. My whole family was at the hospital awaiting his results. It was so scary not really knowing what was going on. After surgery we were told that the cancer was Stage 4 and had metastasized to his lungs, liver and there was a tumor in the fatty tissue of the stomach. I remember cancer being the "C" word. I didn't want to hear it. I remember driving around and looking at the person next to me wondering if they have cancer or if they knew they have it. Or driving for that matter and not remembering how I got from point A to point B. They searched and researched for the best Doctors. He was so infested with cancer that he was turned away from UCLA. He underwent intensive chemo for the next 6 months. My Dad handled the chemo really well on the outside, he didn't lose his hair and he lost weight that he needed to lose. After the 6 months of intense chemo we awaited the test results we were all scared to hear. Amazingly the results came back good! He was in remission. We were so excited. We knew he had dodged a bullet. But not before long the cancer back again. For the next 4 years he was on some sort of chemo. Trial chemo after trial chemo. Once the cancer caught onto that chemo he would move to another. It was an emotional roller-coaster every time he went in for his Ct scan or his cancer marker test, which was every couple weeks. His Doctor then told him that when he was diagnosed he didn't think he would make it 6 months. He said he had never seen anything like it before. My Dad did a good job of hiding his pain and his sickness. One time we were going on a family vacation to Puerto Vallarta and my Dad was too sick to make the flight. He did end up coming a few days later and he looked great and seemed totally normal. The last year of his life was very difficult. The cancer had just taken over his body. He had surgery after surgery, high tech robotic surgery on his spine, many blood transfusions and platelet transfusions, he was fighting till he couldn't fight anymore. He was in a wheel chair because it was in his bones and he couldn't walk. I remember the last time I spoke with him on the phone he told me he had decided he was going to go in for knee replacement surgery. He never made it. He fought the fight for longer than any of his doctors had imagined. That last year I went to to visit him all day on Tuesday and Thursdays and on the weekends when I could. I didn't want to feel like I didn't see him enough if he died. And I didn't feel that way. I was happy with the time we spent together, the lunches we went to after treatments, the time just sitting with him even if we didn't talk. Craig and I got engaged right about the time things started to go down hill. Everything that I did for my wedding I took pictures and I would plug my camera into his TV to show him and keep him involved. I also did this for buying our house. I guess I was in denial about how bad my Dad really was, or maybe just naive. In the last month of his life we were waiting and waiting on the Doctor to tell us what the next step would be, the next thing he was going to try. Finally the Doctor called and he says there is nothing left to do, if you don't want him passing at home you need to get him to the hospital. I also remember that day like it was yesterday. We were at the house when the ambulance came to take him away, it was horrible knowing he would never come home. We followed behind it to the hospital and for the next two days I went home only once to go have dinner with Brianna on her Birthday, December 1st. He was so drugged up on morphine he hadn't spoke in so long. When he was at the hospital he woke up once. He knew why he was there. We were all by his bedside and he was awake for about 45 minutes. He went around the room and spoke to all of us and it was such a blessing to have one last moment with him. He was in the hospital two days before he passed. The whole family was in the room with him. He passed away December 2nd 2004. After he passed some of us sat in the room with him for about two hours. It was so hard to get up and leave, knowing that would be the last time I would see him and hold his hand. At that time there were three major things I wished my Dad could have been there for. My wedding, to see our first first house, and to see me graduate college. I was on the 7 year plan to finish college. I went to Junior college out of high school, then transferd to Cal State Fullerton, then stopped going to CSF to go to the Fashion Institute in L.A. and then back to Cal State Fullerton! My Dad wanted me to graduate from college SO bad. Even in his last moments he made sure to tell me that I better finish school. My Dad passed away the week before my finals. I had papers to finish writing and tests to study for. I was SO stressed because I didn't want to not pass a class and not graduate in June. All of my teachers let me make up my finals whenever I wanted and turn in my papers when I could. They were all so nice. I was also taking a stress management class during intersession...go figure! I had the highest level of stress! We got the keys to our house December 12th 2004. I graduated college June 2005 and we got married July 2005. The next few months after his passing I think I kept really busy to keep my mind off of things, although the things I was doing left me a lot of time to think. I don't think though if I weren't in that state of mind I would have done all that I did. I was in overdrive. Not only did I do my school work, I was planning a wedding and it was seven months before the big day. I redid my entire kitchen cabinets pretty much single-handedly. Painted four rooms in our house and one bathroom. I look back at it now and wonder how I did all that! Dealing with the death of my Dad was hard. Every day I would look at the clock and count the hours, days, weeks, and months that it had been since his passing. I couldn't listen to music for months afterward. I couldn't attend church for a few weeks afterward and the first time I did I had to leave because I was crying. I lost faith in God. There were many times I wanted to call my Dad and ask him something and would remember I can't. They say time heals and it kinda does. There isn't a week that goes by that I don't think of him. There are times I still wish I can share with him and wish I could call him. I wish my boys knew him. Especially with James and his love for cars. My Dad collected cars and I just wish my Dad could see James and his obsession with cars. He would have loved going to car shows with him! I still miss him tremendously and It doesn't get easier with time you just learn how to cope better.
I will always miss you Dad!
(This was our last Christmas together)
And now that I just wrote such a long novel about my trial, I will only say this about my biggest accomplishment...my biggest accomplishment is my children. I hope and pray that we shape them into wonderful adults!
