In Need of a Miracle

Once again, I'm reminded of what an incredible group of women the infertility blogosphere is comprised of. Thank you all for your support and words of encouragement.

Unfortunately, I don't think modern medicine is going to be enough for my dad; I think he's going to need some divine intervention to beat the leukemia.

In response to Ashley's question about the medical center where he was taken, he's in California, and his local doctor arranged for him to be taken to Stanford. That doctor told him he would likely be there for two to three months, but he got there late on Saturday night, and they were planning to release him today without any significant treatment at this point. (Not a good thing.)

He wasn't in great health before his diagnosis. He's had a couple of heart attacks and a stroke in the past five years, and he also has diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, and because of all that stuff, he's already in partial kidney failure. The Stanford docs told him that aggressive treatment (i.e. high-dose chemotherapy) would likely kill him in 4 to 6 weeks.

The doctors presented him with six different options, and he chose to go home, wait for the bone marrow biopsy results and take pills of some sort.

I know, I know - I should have more information than "pills of some sort." But when he tries to talk, he has hacking coughing fits, and his wife is not the type of person who enjoys spending much time on the phone. I will probably call his doctor at some point, but I want to ask their permission first. Hopefully I will talk with them again tomorrow.

Ironically enough, I had an appointment with my therapist about two hours after I found out about the diagnosis on Friday. She asked how I would feel if my dad doesn't get to meet our children. I told her that wouldn't bother me as much as if my mom doesn't get that opportunity, because I'm my mom's only child, i.e., only chance for grandkids.

My dad has three other children from a previous marriage, and all three of them have kids; he's been a granddad since I was in high school. He lives near two of my three siblings, although I don't think he really spends much time at all with them or their children; out of all his relationships with his children, he and I are by far the closest, in large part because they grew up living with their mom in a different state than him.

I also figured that because we're in different states, even though he would love our kids, he probably wouldn't see them more than once every couple of years anyway. So I rationalized that it wouldn't bother me as much, and in some ways I do very much believe that. But listening to him tell me that Stanford is sending him home and that he's not a candidate for aggressive treatment, the tears finally came, and they were around this issue as much as anything else. Damn infertility if it has stolen the opportunity for my dad to meet my kids on top of everything else it's taken from us.

I was on the phone with R, relaying everything I'd found out, when I started to choke up. He was very sweet and quick to reassure me by saying, "Honey, he may not get to meet our kids here on Earth, but he will definitely get to meet them one day."

If anyone's medical issue was to be reversed by a miracle, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was my dad's. He has a tremendous amount of faith and believes very strongly in "laying hands on people." But as we all know, God doesn't necessarily grant miracles in the way that we hope for them.

I'm heading out to visit him on Saturday morning. On top of that and work, my next semester of classes started yesterday. This time I'm taking two classes, and they're kicking my butt already - they involve much more reading and many more weekly assignments than last semster's class, so I may wind up having to drop one in light of everything else that is going on. I want to catch up with each of you individually, but please forgive me if it takes me a while to do so.