Still a Long Road to Travel

It’s a Monday and I’m dead tired as usual. Things have moved ahead of schedule in regards to my father’s cancer treatment. His last chemotherapy session was canceled last Thursday so he is done after five rounds of the misery. Now we are waiting on the GI specialists so that something can be done about his nonfunctional stomach.

In fact, that’s why we asked to have the last round of chemo canceled. Dad has hit the wall in putting up with not being able to eat, spending half his life hooked up to the feeding machine, and choking constantly on phlegm or reflux. Getting stronger for whichever surgery is decided on is a must and he’s lost too much ground already.

Now he has a chance to recover, if he’d stop over exerting himself. It takes next to nothing to do so, yet he gets delusions of being able to do things like mow grass with the push mower. Of course that results in him getting weaker and crankier, setting off another cycle of difficulty for him.

This weekend I did more than usual outside of the house, attending a movie, teaching at church, and meeting up with friends from Utah I hadn’t seen some time. Coming home, I’d find evidence of Dad doing something he shouldn’t have attempted nearly every time. So I won’t be going out much after this brief experience.

The highlight of the weekend was seeing the Colton clan after far too many years. Pauline will always be the little sister that could have been and I wish my mother had lived long enough to have met her. Those two would have been thick as thieves and nearly as much trouble.

I still can’t get over the oldest daughter having graduated high school and preparing for college. It doesn’t help she still looks younger than her age, though her little sister is worse. She got estimated at being seven or eight by a ticket seller earlier in the week despite being a teenager.

Things like that make me wonder if I should be so unhappy about never having been a parent since I worry over the well being of kids. Having a too young looking daughter would make me even more of a frightening daddy than one who looks too mature for her age, I suspect.

Yeah, I’d be the dad greeting any prospective beau at the door with a shotgun resting casually in my hands.

The only downside to seeing my friends again is that I immediately felt that pang of missing them as I drove away.