(originally here http://suedoenim.blogspot.com/2008/04/fuckin-cancer.html)

It looks like y'all are about to take a journey with our family.

In order to do so there's a story. There's always a story.

In the Fall of 2003 my father went Scuba diving in South America (Belize? Honduras?) I don't remember exactly where but I remember he went Scuba diving.

We (kids) were irritated with him because he'd developed Athsma in the years prior and it's really not compatible with Scuba diving and certainly he wasn't in a place where medical care was top notch.

All that aside.

He went and came back with a horrendous cough. That cough was booming and loud (my father is typically both those things) and it was a sharp intake of breath followed by a wheeze followed by an expulsion of air and illness. You could hear the illness in it.

So we stayed away from him. Particularly with the kids.

Since my father was a refugee his medical history is particularly dubious and I'll just let you know that within a 3 month period of this cough there was a quarrantine because they suspected he had Whooping Cough. Your ears would ring after listening to him cough on the phone.

That cough would travel the length of my spine.
I hate the cough.

Oh, and during all of this there were three terrified teenagers living with him.

And my Dad sorta fell off my radar. You see, he just sat around the house for the next few months coughing and not getting better, not wanting my kids around and he was impossible to speak to because of the cough. We love each other in a complicated way. I don't really like him and he doesn't really like me but he's my father so I love him. Frankly it was a relief to not interact.

I was at the park with Adam one morning when my father called. He asked if I'd come and see him. Alone.

I knew it was bad but I wasn't sure how bad.

So I left Adam with my girlfriend at the park and zipped up the hill.

"I have cancer." He said. "It's in my blood and I'm not going to die."

I know we spoke after that because I knew what the cancer is. I remember going cold and wanting to scratch my skin off.

I had my husband paged out of his office and told him to go get his kids.

Now.

Because I just couldn't be anyone's mother for a few hours. I needed some time.

And vodka.

I hopped into my car and drove to my mother's house, poured myself a big drink (yes it was about 10 AM) and passed out on her sofa. It was particularly lovely for my Mom to come home at 11AM with a cousin she hadn't seen in 20 years to find her drunk child passed out.

Meh. Motherhood.

After the initial shock wore off we chugged along like the family we are. We found that the expert we wanted was in Texas and the doctor he recommended in Los Angeles was actually my mother's neighbor.

With doctors all lined up the treatment began.

By March of 2004 my father was getting chemotherapy that the FDA has approved just two weeks prior.

So a slow diagnosis was a good thing.

We all pitched in as best as we could and the doctors said that the treatment would be good for anywhere between 10 months and two years. That was four years ago.

During that time Mr. Nim's mother was also diagnosed with cancer. It's Lymphoma (the bitch step-sister to Leukemia) and she had exactly the same treatment as my father.

Ours is a family that believes in medicine and science.

The cough came back a few months ago so nothing about yesterday's phone call was a surprise.

First there will be mega doses of Prednisone and then Rituxan and Flubendiamide if steroids don't kill the cough. CLL is not the sort of cancer that always requires treatment. My family is the sort of family that requires an action.

Otherwise we're left talking to each other and that's never good.

You see my father told me he was worried because his mother died when she was 65.

Because I love him I didn't say, "No Dad. She died when you were born."

You see I know my father will die one day and I'm pretty sure it won't be the cancer that kills him. The biggest tragedy will be that he'll die pretending no one knows his secrets and those secrets, those really insignificant secrets, will have separated him from everyone who might have actually cared.

Fucking cancer.

I always thought before my father died he'd be honest and, well, he's just not.