my dad has cancer and we still got into a fight!

cherry 1, originally uploaded by pinprick.

what i left out of yesterday's post was that we know it's cancer; when they went in to look at his lymph node they figured that out pretty quickly. they removed the mass (which was honestly big, it freaked me out more than anything), and the lymph node, and then poked around to see if they could find anything else. i knew something was up when mom and dad had been gone for more than a few hours. the procedure was minor and early in the morning, it should have taken a couple of hours and then they should have been home around noon. the later it got, the more worried i got, but i still didn't believe any of this was real until this morning.

mom had been preparing me for all the different things it could be since i came home. i knew something had been going on, but was kept in the dark until the last possible moment. i think the only reason they told me anything at first was because the day pop had to go in for his initial biopsy results i insisted on tagging along. "oh, you're going into town? can i come? i need a set of knitting needles." thinking back on it now, if i had been dad i would have been slightly annoyed when i pouted that we couldn't stop at the yarn store first. he's going in for potential disastrous test results, and his kid is fussy she can't knit while he's in there. lovely! gosh, i'm a great kid. in my defense, i didn't know he'd had the first needle biopsy then. i thought we were seeing his doctor about allergy medication, and was genuinely irked at having to wait to get my needles. after mom told me what was really going on i felt like an ass.

the thing is, we know it's lymphoma, but we don't know what kind. there's a very good chance it just means some radiation/chemo, or a combo of the two, and he's fine. cancer in general isn't cool (did i just say that? am i retarded?!), but he could have a very easily treatable kind of it, and while the treatment isn't going to be fun, it will probably be okay. pop is worried about losing his hair, my sister is in the midst of a freak-out, but mom is being super-stoic. she called me from the hospital to tell me before they came home, and said in her practical-mom way, "if you need to freak out, please do it before we get home. i don't want you upsetting your father." i wasn't allowed to call my sister, so i called the next best thing, anne; i had to try the word "lymphoma" out loud to see if i could say it, and she advised me to stay off-line for a while so i wouldn't be tempted to look up worst-case-scenarios.

for the most part, dad has been in a great mood since the surgery. he's happy he woke up from the anesthesia, and is still on some pain pills. mom thinks this is why he's so pleasant, but he's not like us and doesn't take pills for fun. he got some tylenol 3 and has taken like two of them, whereas my sister or i would have taken as many as we could. we got into an argument tonight about registering my new car (i think it can wait four days, he wants me to do it NOW), and while i felt guilty, i was also relieved. he's still my pop. cancer or no cancer, he's always going to think i'm slightly (!) inept at being a grown-up, and i'm going to bristle at his overbearing nature on occasion. i don't expect some sort of hallmark moment from this. we'll always clash in some ways, and love each other in our own way. that's what being a family is about, isn't it? lymphoma isn't going to turn us into the brady's, and i'm happy about that. my people are more fun anyhow.