The book has begun...

I started that day, June 15, 2010, with a visit to a medium.  She told me some very interesting things, too bad she couldn’t see what the rest of that day would bring for me.  She could see grandma taking care of a little girl. She knew grandma was a very giving person, and could see that she was happy in the role she was playing in heaven keeping things in order.  She seen mike’s grandpa and described him to detail with a drink in hand, and smoking like a chimney.  She even talked about a young man who had died tragically in a car accident who’s name began with A, I realized very quickly she was speaking of a cousin who had died just as she described.  I learned a lot that day of people who had passed, and was very comforted in how she described what she seen would become of my life in the years to come.  Upon leaving I was very excited to go share this information with my dad, he was never a true believer of psychics or mediums but I thought with the information I had could convert him to a believer.  We went to have lunch with my dad at work, where normally I was greeted with a hug.  This day was different.  I knew almost immediately upon seeing him that something was off.  I started to speak of my experience with the medium that morning, and could see the confusion on his face. He kept telling me to slow down, and asking me to repeat myself as he could not understand what I was telling him.  He struggled to understand what we were talking about, so I tried again to explain that she could see grandma, and Aaron.. What happened next will forever be imprinted in my mind.  He opened his mouth to talk and what came out sounded nothing like any language I had ever heard.  I told him to repeat himself, and he did, but again it was nothing to be understood.  Mike started to laugh, and questioned whether or not dad had been drinking that day.. Turns out this was no laughing matter. 

My thoughts quickly turned to an event that had taken place a few years prior.. I received a phone call one day from a cousin to tell me that my Uncle had a small stroke.  She explained to me that he started talking and it made no sense, and he was dizzy and lightheaded, I immediately thought my dad too was having a stroke.  A flurry of thoughts ran through my head, what should I do? Could this really be, was my dad having a stroke right in front of my eyes? And what could I do to help him! 

Just as quickly as it started, it stopped.  We even joked with him about what he had tried to say to us, and how it made no sense.  Just then my mom entered the shop and we told her we thought dad was having a stroke.
 We asked dad if he remembered what had just happened, and he responded by saying he could see our mouths moving, but no sense could be made of what we were trying to say to him, which is why he kept asking us to repeat ourselves.  I asked him how he felt and he explained that his head felt light.  I didn’t need to hear anything else, I made a call to the doctors and asked for some advice.  We were told he should be seen in emerg to be evaluated.

We stopped at the house to get my dad something to eat since we thought possibly he just had low blood sugar from not eating yet that day, and we were on our way.  One thing, thinking back now was my dad put up no fight when we told him he needed to go to the hospital.  It was like he knew.

In that drive to Stratford hospital, my mind raced at the possibility of my dad losing mobility, losing his speech, or possibly dying.  I had constant contact with a friend to ask advice on what should be done, what was happening and why? 

When we arrived at emerg dad explained to the triage nurse that his head felt weird, and we explained the events that had taken place at the shop only an hour earlier. 

Almost immediately a head CT was ordered, and it was decided that dad had an acute left side stroke, but not to worry because he could receive an injection that would reverse any side effects since we had got him to emerg so quickly.  The feeling of relief was wonderful, it was all going to be fine.  In a split second, another doctor was called onto dad’s case since the results of the scan were quite puzzling, this is where ‘SHE’ entered our lives.  What they were seeing in his brain, would usually show up days or months after someone had a stroke, and with dad it had happened within just a few hours.  The decision was made to admit him, and perform another scan but this time a dye was injected into his veins to see better results. 

Sitting outside emerg with my brothers, all making phone calls to keep people informed, we never expected the news we were about to get.  We were only allowed to have one of us in there at a time with dad and Dan was by his side with mom when “she” came in to deliver possibly the hardest punch we could ever receive. There was no sugar coating, no nice way of saying it and she sure didn’t try to ease the pain when delivering the news.

Your dad has a tumor in his brain, and it is cancer.  Brain cancer is very rarely a primary cancer, it usually develops somewhere else in the body and spreads in to the brain, is what we were told next.  The bad news just kept coming.. You now have to wait to find out where else he has cancer.  All this was Unbeknownst to Andy and I.  Could this have been done with all of us present? Should it have been done differently?  She was doing her job, delivering results to a patient who she didn’t know from a hole in the ground, what did she care? It’s not her family. 

 Danny walked into the parking lot, hardly able to keep it together and what he told us would change our lives forever.  It’s cancer.

That was it.. The start to the next 5 months.

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