Becky and her Dad
When my dad told me he had stage 4 cancer, I didn’t really have much of a reaction. The only thing I said was, “oh no,” before walking to my room and closing the door. It’s not that I didn’t feel bad for him. I just didn’t know what to say. In the months before his diagnosis, everything had already been slowly crumbling. He fractured his hip five times, had three ambulance pickups, and has had over 13 surgeries and two hip replacements. He has always pushed his body too far, between work and the gym, and never really took the time to let himself heal.
Eventually, even his orthopedic surgeon couldn’t figure out why his body wasn’t healing. Then they found it. He had esophageal cancer and a spinal tumor that had already spread throughout his body. By the time we knew, he could barely move. He screamed in pain throughout the night and couldn’t walk to the kitchen, the bathroom, or even eat without struggling. He became so skinny. He was 106 pounds at 5’10. Seeing my dad, who always cared so much about the gym and nutrition, look like a skeleton was horrifying. I hated hearing him groan in pain. Sometimes I even got mad and annoyed at him for it.
He had radiation and two spinal surgeries to remove the tumor. After the second surgery, they got most of it out, and for about a week, it felt like a miracle. He could finally stand without pain and move his legs again. I’m incredibly grateful that he had access to the treatment and a surgeon who could perform such a specific procedure. But cancer is apparently not smooth sailing. One minute you think things are getting better, and the next you’re scared all over again.
In the last month, we’ve already talked about goodbyes. He told me how the will is split, who is in charge of the finances, and that my mom can make life ending decisions for him. He doesn’t want to be kept on life support if there is no hope. I’m scared. His pain is coming back now, even after his final radiation treatment. He screams in the morning, at night, and whenever he moves the wrong way. Seeing him take morphine and several doses of oxycodone honestly terrifies me. I wonder what would happen if I took it. I just keep hoping that the radiation worked and that the tumor isn’t coming back.
At first, part of me thought his cancer was karma. I felt horrible even thinking that, but I couldn’t stop myself. There were so many things from my childhood that I associated with him: his part in infidelity, which was lame, his angry and very scary outbursts, leaving us home alone, leaving my mom to raise my sister and me, and threatening to take away everything I loved. So when he got cancer, a part of me thought, maybe this is what happens when you make so many bad decisions. I hated myself for thinking that because, at the end of the day, he is still just sick. He is still a person in excruciating pain. And the irony is that the people he hurt the most are the ones still here for him. Especially my mom.
She has given up so much to take care of him. She helps him walk, feeds him, cleans up after him, and takes care of him when he can barely take care of himself. She has been there through everything. In the hospital, while my mom washed his hair, he said she had the “healing hands of God.” He fully believed it too, which was funny because he doesn’t even believe in God at all.
I think what I really meant when I thought it was karma was that I couldn’t understand how someone who spent his whole life pushing through everything could suddenly become so dependent on everyone else. He never listened to his body. He never stopped working. He never stopped going to the gym. Even after surgery after surgery, he kept pushing himself. And then his body finally forced him to stop.
But I also realized that cancer isn’t punishment. It doesn’t care what you have done or thought in life. It just happens, to anyone. That’s what makes it so cruel. Seeing my dad like this makes me angry sometimes, and it has brought back a lot of the bad things from the past. But it has also revealed all the ways he is trying to make up for them now.
Before his second surgery, he apologized to me. He told me he was sorry for not being there. He said he didn’t regret having me and that I was the best thing in his life. He said he loved me and was sorry for everything. He told me he didn’t know how to take care of me, that his way of showing love was working and providing for us, and that he wished he could have been there more. He told me that if he could change his past, he would. After his surgery, when he was healthier, I told him I didn’t hold it against him anymore. I told him he didn’t have to worry about what I thought of him and that I wasn’t scared of him anymore. My mom asked, “Really?” I know she didn’t actually believe me, but I said yes. I don’t know if I was completely telling the truth. Maybe there will always be some distance between us. But mentally, I love him. And I think that’s what matters.
Cancer changed the way I look at everything. It made me realize how important the little things are. Get the checkup. Go to the doctor. Get the blood tests. You can look like the healthiest person in the world while something inside your body is getting worse without you knowing. It also changed the way I see my dad.
I go to the gym every day now, even though I secretly hate it, because I know it makes him happy to see me doing something he loves. I like when he asks what I did. I water the plants so he can see the trees glisten and smell the outside air that he can’t walk out to anymore. I try to do the yard work because I know he can’t. I think that’s the best I can do for him. Enjoy the things I know he loves so he can still feel like he’s a part of them.
I’m still scared. I’m scared to leave for Italy for college and leave him behind. I feel guilty about going, but at the same time, I feel a little more secure knowing that my dad is excited for me to go and live my life. My mom is the only one who can really help him, and I can feel how stressed and exhausted she is. Our house isn’t big, so you feel everything. I can also smell the sickness, and it makes me feel a little sick too, but I’m trying to hope for the best. I know he’s strong. I also know from past experience that he can get through everything.
Cancer has somehow brought back a kind of love between us that I never really felt for the first 19 years of my life. Before, I could barely smile at him, and he could barely smile at me. Now he texts “I love you guys” in the family group chat, and I hug him before I leave the room. It’s different. It showed me that love for someone you care about can always come back. Maybe that’s the one lesson cancer gave me that I never knew I needed.