March Madness

I have to admit, leaving my dad at the hospital was a huge sigh of relief.  My whole life I have known him to be strong and very healthy, in fact one of the big jokes in our family is how he never even catches a cold.  So to see him this weak and in so much pain really scared me and left me feeling very helpless.  Surely the hospital would help this time – provided he doesn’t go and check himself out against medical advice again.

Mom and I decided to head over to visit him in the afternoon to spend some time. I was going to watch the Gators play as the started their quest for the National Championship title.  This is something my dad and I exclusively share, our love for Gator sports. (My  mom is always yelling “Turn the TV down! You aren’t actually at the game.”)  I graduated from the University of Florida and if you don’t come out of those four (or in my case, four and a half) years basically bleeding orange and blue you haven’t lived your full college experience.

I brought Daddy a tuna sandwich, some chips and some homemade chocolate chip cookies.  He had been complaining about hospital food saying it all tastes like plastic. I don’t know if this was more of an excuse because he was not hungry or if it was true.  Taking a look at the sad scoop of tuna salad that he had on his tray when I came in I tend to think it was more of the latter.

He seemed in decent spirits as we watched the Gators play in the SEC Championship.  There wasn’t much talking, more just hanging around with him.  He did mention the oncologist he had an appointment with later in the week, Dr. K, had stopped by.  So that, along with what his GP said yesterday before he was checked in gave us a bit of a clearer picture.

My father is diagnosed with Stage 3-3B Squamous Cell Carcinoma.  He has a bit of pneumonia and is dehydrated as well.  IVs are in and all we can do at this point is hope the antibiotics clear the cold and we can deal with the bigger issue behind it.  He has different doctor visits scheduled all week, culminating with a PET Scan to see if its spread (my new vocab word is metastasized) so I hope that he can rest and gain some strength for what’s to come.

I wonder if he knows how bad this actually might be but am afraid to ask.  I don’t want him freaking out any more than my mom, sister and myself are doing.  He doesn’t research things on the internet – we do, which can be a good or really really bad thing.  It’s all we can do to not future trip right now but the wait for tests and information is a whole new stress all its own beast.

The Gators live on to play the next round, in the post interview Coach Billy Donovan says, “We can only just take each game as it comes.”

Indeed Coach, indeed.

 

 

Back to SMH

I wake up the next morning, plan in my head for some breakfast that dad might like as I am padding down the hallway.  Only when I get to the kitchen he’s not at the bar stool with coffee.  My mom is just standing there, not really doing anything.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Your father woke up throwing up and has gone back to bed, I called the Dr. and we have an appointment to see him this afternoon.”

OK, that does not sound good at all.   I had no idea what I was walking into when I came home but this is looking far worse than I had already prepped myself for.  The closest brush I have ever had with cancer to date was my grandmother who died from colon cancer about nine years ago. I remember it clearly because it was the second year I moved out to LA and I didn’t have enough money to come back and visit her.  I still kick myself about that to this day, it would’ve been nice to have had a last visit, she was a cool lady and a strong woman.  This is all new to me and even though mom took care of Nana through the last year of her life it still wasn’t like this.  Nana had nurses, we only have each other right now.

He sleeps through most of the morning, only getting up about an hour and a half before the appointment.  He cannot walk upright and is short of breath even from the bed to the car and certainly from the car to the doctor’s office.  His head is in his hands.  Thankfully the doctor shows up fairly quickly.  After looking at Dad hunched over the exam table, his head down and in his hands, barely able to answer questions he says,

“I would like to check you into the hospital if that is OK with you.”

Well, after the last visit in the hospital which ended only a day and half ago under bad circumstances he was none to pleased to think about heading back.  It took about ten minutes of convincing but we were able to get him to agree and we left the doctor’s office and headed straight to admitting.

One thing about my parents (and by extension myself too) is they cannot understand or abide by inefficiency.  Dad was just in the hospital forty-eight hours ago and they couldn’t understand why he had to go through admitting again.   Here we are, answering the standard questions, my mother stressed to the max and my father in so much pain that he doesn’t care what he looks like and me trying to calmly keep everyone from going over the edge.  It was a tense hour to say the least and we were finally followed the volunteer and my father to the admitting floor.  As we crossed through the hallway to his temporary bed my chest tightened.  99% of the time being in this environment means bad things.

Shit just became real.

Day Two

I woke up, later than I wanted, and both my parents were already up. I walked out and they both gave me big hugs. Despite the initial protest from my mother, I knew the best thing to do was be here with both of them as this news begins to affect them.

My parents are the type of people who keep to themselves.  Sure, there are a few people that are just slightly more than casual acquaintances, but mostly it’s just the two of them in this big house living a daily life.

My dad is a salesman, he’s been at this my whole life. He loves it and he’s good at it.  Going out all day, meeting up with customers, networking and closing deals…that’s his bag.  He’s a charming fellow, I remember being in the car with him as a child and just hearing him work people left and right.  In a way we do exactly the same thing – I make a commission every time I book a job and I go days pounding the pavement making nothing but there I am – trying to be charming and work to make that sale.  The only difference is he’s selling heavy equipment and I am selling a version of myself.

My mom is a teacher, she’s followed in my grandmother’s education footsteps and taught elementary kids.  She’s gone from full time to substitution and now she consults for the tests that kids have to take yearly for progress.  I bet there are kids I can talk to now who would remember her and how they possibly shaped an idea in their young heads…I know I have teachers throughout my life who have done that for me.

But you see, they both have white collar jobs and my sister and I both work in entertainment and arts.  It’s been the oddest thing to figure out how the two of them raised and actor and an artist.  Nobody has figured it out yet.

The beauty of my job is the ability to pick up and leave.  I am nothing so great (yet) that it hurts my career to leave for any extended period of time.

My dad looks really skinny – I mean eighty year old man skinny. He’s weak, he’s complaining of his back hurting.  He has been seeing a doctor since he started feeling bad over Christmas and apparently has been losing weight like this over the past six months.  I am shocked that no one suspected this prior to now.   I am angry that no one suspected this until now and did some sort of test – would a few months had made any difference?  We will never know.

The day seems to go fairly smooth, mom’s and my concentration is on getting his strength back.  There’s also a matter of dealing with paperwork that allows my mother to be able to call and talk to medical people on dad’s behalf.  I understand HEPA laws and why they are there but I also think when you are desperate and confused it’s a really mean thing to hear “sorry, I can’t tell you shit.”  And now I see exactly how same sex partners feel.  They won’t even tell a spouse anything without the proper papers so imagine how you would feel if you weren’t even technically recognized as a life-partner? Helpless indeed.   Do yourself a favor, we found them online on our state’s government website – get signed a durable power of attorney, a living will, a designated health care surrogate and a DNRO.  When so much is out of your control you need to take the little that you can.

I made Dad California-style tacos, he ate more than he has been, but still it was not near enough.  We dosed him up with some pain pills and sent him to sleep.  Perhaps this bit of food and some proper sleep (he couldn’t sleep in the hospital, who can really? ) will make him feel better tomorrow.

March 12, 2014

I woke up in my sunny apartment in Los Angeles. It was going to be a fun, busy day; I had an audition for the hit TV show “Scandal,” then acting class and then head directly to my day job.  I turned on my phone and hopped in the shower.

Twenty minutes later, while putting on my make up my phone beeped with both voicemail, text and email:

Blow #1 – my audition had been canceled.  The role had been given to another actor who had already been on the show so they could create a recurring character.  Disappointing, yes, but this type of thing happens all the time.

Blow #2 – my father, who had been in the hospital with a nasty bout of pneumonia had checked himself out.

He had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

My world immediately went silent.  I had only experienced this once before, when the first pet I ever had died.  It’s like the wind dies and the birds cease to sing.  The cars that were only a moment before so loudly passing outside my windows were no longer rumbling by.  My husband pulled me to him as I said, “Daddy has cancer.”

Within three hours I had told my mom I was on my way. I spoke to my agent and manager to let them know the situation, asked my day job for indeterminate time off and hopped on the next flight out.  The flight seemed so strange, I guess I became hyper-aware of those around me.  There was an old lady coughing steadily two seats behind me, I started to think “gosh, she’s gonna cough a lung up” and immediately teared up.  As I flew across the country in the middle seat I had to fight not to cry. Thoughts would just pop up, the mind runs away with you no matter how you try to control it.  I got off the first leg with an hour in between and as I deplaned I noticed a woman with her phone plugged into the wall in the hallway. She was sobbing as she talked on the phone.  I wanted to hug her – to make her feel better and honestly I needed a hug too.  But I guess you can’t randomly hug people in the airport so I continued on.

Having not eaten all day I found myself chowing on wings and beer, no make up on and trying to figure out how to rent a car to get home, to make it all more complicated there seemed to be no one-way reservation.  I guess it was Spring Break in Florida and everyone wants a rental car.  I was half-halfheartedly watching the sports channel in the restaurant and my commercial came on.  My face turned beet red and I put my face back into the wings. I am sure no one was paying attention but it was a jolt to me – just this morning my life seemed so much lighter.

I arrived at midnight, was able to secure a one way car (by having a three day reservation) and drove the hour to my hometown.  By 1:30AM I was in bed all the way across the country and hoping like hell that I would be able to mentally, emotionally and physically handle whatever came my way when I woke up in the next morning.