Cancer Ramblings

Dear Carol,

I sure want to thank you for this wonderful email. I received it moments after you sent it, read it immediately, and it just felt
really great to hear some understanding of what we are going through, a little picture of what the next phase brings, and some
questions that are so specific (we are suddenly living in a world of specific information - chemical names, medical terms,
procedures, science, statistics).

In the space of one week we have discovered that he has a tumor on his liver and that in two days will go in for surgery, followed by chemotherapy. And yes, I am very very close to him - as close as a daughter can be to her father. We think alike, care about the same things, think deeply together, and I am able to talk and laugh with him about things that no one else in my life has ever seemed to quite understand.

> Both of you are in shock. This is a natural
> thing, one that every patient and every care giver feels when
it first
> happens. You will "settle down" in a while. Pretty soon you
will
> "switch gears" and become a full blown care giver - following
up on
> procedures; checking out "trials"; searching the Internet for
> possibilities. And most importantly, being the strength and
comfort your
> father needs.

Thank you for this. I have read and re-read and re-read this passage over and over - I don't know why exactly. Maybe just trying to wrap my brain around the reality of what my life ahead holds for me. It sounds awful. The only part that sounds good is being able to give to my father.

I am finding it hard to feel hopeful, for some reason. Usually I am the one who feels the most hopeful, but I simply don't find that in me at all. I definitely find myself preparing myself for him to die - and that is probably not the right way to be thinking - I'm sure that that attitude will leak through to my Dad somehow, even if I think I'm hiding it. (As well as to the rest of my family, who need to feel hopeful, too, for themselves and for my father's sake). I would love to be able to find, and read to my father, a story of someone with what he has (which I think is Stage IV colon cancer - I'm making this up because no one seems to have given it a name yet, but since he was diagnosed with colon cancer last year and since primary liver cancer is almost non-existent in this country, and based on an article I read in which Stage IV indicates that the cancer has migrated to other organs - I am assuming that this is his diagnosis). I guess once they perform the surgery, and the pathologist looks at the tumor cells, we'll get a diagnosis. Is that how it's done?

I would LOVE to hear a success story from a person with this type of cancer. My dad could use some stories like that at
this point, too - he's scared, and as he calls it "a little discouraged." This is a man who NEVER gets licked by anything - iron will, relentlessly optimistic about being able to overcome any illness or injury or setback.

You are right, we do not know much yet about any of this. I guess they tell you after the surgery? Is that normally how it's
done? We spoke to the oncologist who said he'd have chemo after surgery, and then he spoke to the surgeon, who said he'd take
half his liver out, and not to worry, many people live with half a liver. Then he told him he had a 60% chance of the cancer
recurring within five years. This is what got my father down. To be honest - I was expecting to hear MUCH worse. I had done as
much reading as I could - not mentioning much about what I was reading to my Dad expect for the postive things - but I read that
only 20% of cancers in the liver are in fact operable, so I was expecting that he would be told they couldn't even operate. And
from what I read it sounded like most people with liver cancer die within a year. Don't know where I read this, but that's what
I saw. I'm in shock.

When I first heard I spoke to an MD - distant friend - who, when I said my dad had had colon cancer last year, said "Oh boy -
that's bad. He has Stage IV colon cancer, and that's incurable. That's a really ugly cancer. That's the reality." His words sound
harsh, but I didn't take them that way, I just took them as the hard truth. So I'm shaken.

I would like to feel hopeful - I guess I can get myself to feel hopeful a little when I think that there are ALWAYS people who
defy statistics, or who survive when they "shouldn't" or things like that. There's always a window, sort of. I'm not sure what is
getting in the way for me here, this time, like I said before. Just not sure.

> To a major degree,
>you need
> to keep up with yourself, too.

You say to a MAJOR degree. Do you mean this? Major? What do you mean by this? Why is this so important?

Gosh, you are great, so kind and intelligent. Thank you Carol. Nice to know this shock will wear off - because I'm finding it extremely difficult to concentrate on anything else, or even be interested in anything else. And I'm exhausted, just drained, and waking up all through the night. And fighting with everything I've got to control the impulse to tell everyone - every one of my clients, strangers in the street, everyone and anyone - that I am scared for my Dad and his suffering and for me that I may lose him.

Thank you Carol. Many, many thanks. Your words are a blessing, and so are you. Such kindness, and I really need it.

Love Liza