Dad Passed On

I was not looking forward to last week, but it turned out to be a much more painful week than even expected.

Wednesday was the 5th anniversary of miscarriage #2. Thursday was the 7th anniversary of miscarriage #1.

And then, on Friday morning, dad passed away with his wife and me by his side.

It was somewhat expected, although I don't think anyone - including the oncologist - thought it would be quite that soon.

Dad had seemed to be doing well (relatively speaking) when I spoke with him several times in April, but then test results the weekend after Easter showed that despite the transplant, leukemia cells had returned. So R and I drove out to be with him two days later, and then four days after that he was gone.

I'm thankful he's not suffering any more, and I'm glad his wife, who has literally been by his side pretty much every single moment of every single day since he was diagnosed two years ago this month, no longer has to be a full-time caregiver.

I don't know if it's relief that his ordeal is over or that I've dealt with so much loss that I'm an expert at coping or if I'm just flat-out avoiding dealing with it at all (ding ding ding, I think we have a winner, folks), but so far I haven't really cried. R keeps looking at me sideways, like he's trying to spot the warning signs of the big implosion he's anticipating.

I haven't been in the mood to talk much lately (obviously, since I haven't been posting or commenting). I think between all the infertility stuff and my dad's battle, I'm just tired of medical stuff in general.

We don't know yet when we're going to do our next transfer. A couple months back, tests showed my thyroid meds dosage was way too low (TSH was 15+) and that my kidneys were in stage 3 (the middle of 5 stages) of kidney failure.

My doctor increased my thyroid meds, and I think that has also improved my kidneys, but I need to get bloodwork done to confirm that before we can move forward with a cycle. I was going to get that drawn last week, but with everything going on, we won't be home until next week, so it will have to wait until then.

Fingers crossed that I manage to keep myself together through this week - services are at the end of the week.