Breakfast: 7am
1 Butterfinger Visalus Shake
Mid-Morning: Nothing.
Lunch: 2pm
1 Peanut Butter & Banana Visalus Shake
Mid-Afternoon: 6pm
1 Tomato
Evening: 9pm
1 Taco Salad (w/Whole Grain Tortillas)
12oz. Coke Zero
State of Being:
So, this is going to be a little different from what I usually do. I'm posting today's entry at the beginning of the day, rather than the end.
It's a one-time thing. Just for today. I'll come back and log-in the rest of my meals for the day, later on tonight.
I have a lot that I want to say and I want to say it while it's fresh in my mind, not after the whole day has had it's chance to knock me down, kick me, beat me and laugh about it. That's what life's been doing lately, and by the end of the day, I'm so tired and just... over it and ready for bed, that I haven't been saying what I need to say.
So, for today... to anticipate and adjust for present circumstances, I want to say what I have to say before my resources and energy are completely depleted. I want you to hear it now. Not later.
My Dad's dying.
I know that, if you follow this blog you probably already knew that. But, for those who might be just now getting caught up, I think it's important that you know that before I get into this.
Earlier this year, he was having a lot of pain in his stomach and in his side. We thought it was his appendix. But, when he went in to get it looked at, they said that they couldn't really get a good read on it as his appendix was in a weird position, (I guess a small percentage of the population has an appendix that's on the opposite side of the stomach from where it should be, which also puts it close to an artery and dangerous to operate on. My Dad is apparently one of these people,) so they didn't want to operate unless it was absolutely necessary. They gave him some stuff for the pain and sent him home.
Well, it kept getting worse. Eventually, it got so bad that my Dad was right on the verge of collapse, so we finally convinced him to go back in and the doctors said that they would have to operate, in spite of the risks it presented.
After the surgery, they told us that they had found his small bowel to be absolutely riddled with cancer. Stage four.
He met with an oncologist who ran a battery of tests on him and told us not to be freaked-out over it being stage-4, as it was a "very treatable" form of cancer that was "very slow-growing." He told us that, "worst case-scenario" Dad had "several years left."
We all breathed a sigh of relief and started looking around at different treatment options.
A few weeks later, Dad starts having lots of pain again. So, we went back into the hospital, they found that he had another blockage in his small bowel. More tests. More consultations, and a whole new prognosis from the same doctors. It turns out it's actually a very rare form of very fast-growing cancer. It's so rare, in fact that they "have nothing to compare it to," much less any idea on how to treat it, and now... "best case-scenario" Dad has "a few weeks left." That was just about a month ago. They told us that, at this point, chemo- or radiation-therapy would only hasten his death.
In the span of a little over a month, my Dad has gone from this...
(You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.)
to this...
and finally, to this... (taken two days ago)
He can't eat anything, as doing so would obstruct his bowels and kill him. So, since there's no food for the cancer to feed on, it's just feeding on him. Eating him alive.
I could go on and on for hundreds, even thousands of pages on how much I Love my Dad and everything that he has meant to me,... everything he still means to me and always will. But, I want to stay on point. This blog is about my weight-loss journey. More than that, it's about where the journey takes me and how it's going. So, I hope you won't interpret it as too crass or selfish of me, but I'm going to keep this entry restricted to that aspect of things, as best I can.
I'm slipping. In fact, I've slipped. I've fallen. I've spiraled... really far. I know I've regained weight, but I haven't had the nerve to actually get on a scale and find out how much.
I cannot express how angry, frustrated, and heartbroken I am. Words just can't do it. Or, if they can, it would take a far better writer than I to coax them to the task.
I *hate* that this is happening to him. I am not using the term lightly, as in... "I hate rom-com movies," or "I hate super-hot weather." No. I mean, if cancer were a person, I would murder it. I mean, I want to destroy something for every minute of consciousness that I am forced to endure. But, it's not as if sleep brings me any peace either, because most of the time, lately I just have nightmares about my family.
It's not fair. My Dad is a wonderful, Loving and generous man. He is everything that I hope I can one day be. My parents always worked so hard to give us everything we needed and more. We had a ranch, nearly twenty acres of lush, green land, a dozen horses, good food, transportation,... we had way more than many people... and we didn't have these things because we were rich, or because we'd inherited anything. We had them because my parents worked and worked and broke their backs to provide them for us.
When I was a little kid, we were pretty poor. We lived in subsidized housing, we were on welfare, virtually all of my clothing consisted of hand-me-downs. But, my parents picked themselves up by the bootstraps, put themselves through college, forged ahead into better careers and built a better life for us from the ground up. I spent my late-childhood through my early-adolescence watching them do this,... all while they raised three, very rambunctious, difficult-to-manage, and often openly-defiant... (we're Lorees) ...kids.
If I'd been my parents, I would have thrown me off a roof for some of the stuff I did and said, growing up.
I've never, in my life done anything even remotely as selfless, as courageous, or as heroic as the way my parents lived and what they put themselves through for us, for those several years.
And now, my Dad is being torn away from us by this disease. He's going to die in his fifties, and there is no one to blame, there's nothing to do about it. All we can do is try to make sure he's comfortable and spend as much time with him as we can.
I'm digressing a lot, here. Sorry. This is going stream-of-consciousness, today. I'm just writing what I think and feel as I think and feel it. Nothing's going to be cut. Nothing's going to be edited. Please bear with me. I want you to see me right now in all my glorious, furious ugliness.
This is what happens sometimes. This is something life can throw at you, and it won't shy away from it, just because you'd rather it left you alone. This world and life itself can be a pretty nasty, vindictive bastard at times, and when that happens, and you've been left no other avenue, nor any safe outs, sometimes the best and only thing you can do is to be a big, mean bastard right back at it.
Today is the first day of the second half of my current 90 Day Challenge.
It's day forty-six.
Right now, as I sit here, I swear on my life and my Love of it, before God, that the slipping and falling stops, and it stops right now.
I know that the hits are going to keep on coming. But, I'm done getting sweet-talked by habit, addiction and depression into helping it happen.
I can't do anything for my Dad's condition. Nothing!
I can't help him.
I can't save him.
I can't trade places with him.
I would if I could. In a heartbeat.
What I can do, is channel all of that anger, all of that frustration and heartbreak into kicking this challenge in the ass so hard, that the next three challenges are going to feel it.
I can honor what my Dad has always busted his hump to do for me; to take care of me, to give me a better life... by doing the same. I can make sure that I'm going to make it. I can make sure that my life is going to become what he knew it could be, and what he spent so much of himself, and his own life trying to ensure for me,... and not just my own life, not just for myself, but for my family as well.
I will not fail, and I will not slip again. Not ever.
From this moment on, there is NOTHING but the success of this journey, for myself and for my family.
There is NOTHING ELSE.
And that,... is something that I can do for my Dad.
See you tomorrow.
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