Whew - moving right along on my list of #30 things...
#6) What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?
This entry might be a little sad...
We've had a lot of sickness and death in our family the last few years. 2008/2009 was pretty rough, I lost my amazing Aunt Kathy, my wonderful Grandpa Jack and my dad all within a few months of each other. My dad was of course the toughest to lose. I think it was November 2007 (around that time anyhow, I remember Christmas shopping) that I was out and got a call from my momma saying that Dad wasn't acting like himself. She was a little worried, but he had been having health issues for a couple years at this point and they thought it might be one of the drugs he was on for his diverticulitis. The next day or so she called again to say he was acting even stranger and that they were heading to the hospital. There, they told her they thought he had had a stroke and that they were sending him on to UT for further tests. It was there that we found out it wasn't a stroke but in fact a very large brain tumor. It ended up being a really bad kind, one that is almost never cured. He wasn't given long, but ended up staying with us for almost a year and a half, much longer than they had anticipated. He was never, ever himself again though. I wasn't super close to my dad and to this day I can't remember my last "normal" conversation with him. He was so so sick those 18 months. He endured weeks and weeks and WEEKS of very high doses of chemo. Rounds of radiation. He lost so much weight. He didn't act like himself, he acted like a little kid - getting in to things you might shoo a toddler away from. My amazing mother stayed by his side every minute of every day. He stopped eating and she'd coax him into nibbling on pudding and juice boxes. She had to quite her job to care for him. It is heartbreaking to see your dad go through something like this. It's even more painful when the relationship was damaged and not able to be repaired because his mind was gone. I never got to work things out with him. I never got one last "I love you". I wish desperately that I could go back in time and just give him a hug. One big, huge hug and tell him I love him. Instead my last real memory of him before the diagnosis is a fight. If I could pass one thing along from this is don't live your life like that, not with your family. We had another scary health diagnosis just two weeks ago. I can't say much about it, but I will tell you that just before the news came I was in the middle of an argument with a family member (I promise, we don't argue as much as it sounds!)... then you get that news and the world comes to a screeching halt. It's not worth it friends. Love your family. Cherish your family. Embrace your differences and also the ties that bind you all together. Life is a short thing that we are not guaranteed. Don't live the rest of it with regrets like mine.
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