Listen Yall: Life is Messy.

Glioblastoma? Malignant? Terminal? 3 months to live without surgery?

These were all the thoughts racing through my mind as the neurosurgeon at the hospital informed me and my dad of his diagnosis. At the time, my Dad wasn’t quite able to wrap his head around everything. For example, he thought malignant meant non-cancerous. It’s okay though, medical terms are complicated. Anyway, as the doctor stood in his room and continued speaking with us everything around me seemed to become blurry. Figuratively speaking of course. But you know in movies when someone hears bad news and everything gets blurry and even though the doctor or whoever is still talking to you, you can’t hear them anymore and their words turn into what sounds like Dory from Finding Nemo speaking whale and you shrink and the world around you feels like it’s caving in? Good. Because that is exactly how I felt. I mean there I was sitting with my Dad getting a terminal diagnosis just four months after my Mom passed away. This was absolutely, completely, and utterly confusing. I couldn’t understand why this was happening. Is God punishing me for what I’ve done in my past? Is this the beginning of the end of the world? Make no mistake, as humans we aren’t supposed to understand the will of God nor His plans, but I still couldn’t help those thoughts and feelings taking control of me for a little while.

Okay, so a terminal cancer diagnosis. My Mom isn’t here to help me navigate this. I have no siblings. Oh, and remember in the last post where I mentioned my Dad’s parents moved into his house with him as a result of Hurricane Laura? Well, before we left to go to the hospital, my Grandpa insisted I wake him up to tell him what they found out, no matter what time it was. Oh. Lord.

With all of those thoughts laid out for you, let me walk y’all through the events leading up to this God awful discovery. On the first weekend of November last year, my Dad and Grandpa loaded up to go back to the small town they lived in before the hurricane. They wanted to go to the deer lease for opening weekend and to kick back with the guys. So off they went. On their way down there, they stopped to get some deer corn for the camp. While my Dad was loading the corn into the bed of his truck he slipped and fell from the tailgate to the ground. He says he woke up all of a sudden staring at the sky. This happened on Thursday..he didn’t tell me about it until he was on his way home on Sunday.

I had been staying at his house to take care of my Grandma while they were gone, so when they got back I was there to help unload the truck. I was getting ready to leave when all of a sudden my Dad had a wave of heat spread over him while trying to help my Grandma. I told him to sit down and I would finish helping her. Once I finished with her I took Daddy’s temperature. It was 100.9. Slightly elevated but I thought maybe he just got overheated unloading the truck. I checked his temperature again forty-five minutes later and it was 104.6. Okay, panic.

After seeing that temperature and knowing my grandparents are high risk, I took my Dad to an ER clinic that provides rapid covid testing (yes, I know those aren’t always accurate.) He tested negative for covid so I asked if they’d do a strep and flu test. They did and both were negative. We left there with the conclusion from the doctor that it was probably just “a viral fever.” LOL! Yeah sorry, that answer ain’t gonna cut it. I ended up staying the night that night (Trev and I live an hour away and it was already 11:30pm). The next morning my Dad was up and dressed for work but he still had a fever. It was 101.3 that morning so I sent him upstairs to stay away from everyone else because he could have had a false negative covid test. He slept the entire morning. I brought him lunch and he was still able to taste and smell. I checked his temperature again after he ate and it was back up to 104. I took it upon myself to call his PCP who requested he get an MRI to make sure everything was okay. That is when we ended up heading to the hospital. Little did we know how our lives were about to change, drastically.

Listen y'all, you are your own health advocate. When you feel like something isn’t right, don’t take one doctor's opinion and be content with a “viral fever” when it could be so much worse.

Check back for more soon.

Stay true,

Hails