Well my father is a really active 70 year old man who smoked his pretty much entire life. Other than that he has a healthy lifestyle, decent weight, still working as an attorney, lover of his family with multiple dreams and projects to accomplish. On June 2013 he started to experience shortness of breath while going upstairs to his office, which he would always do. He was not so old to take the elevator to go up 3 floors. He noticed that if he wanted to do 2 steps at a time it was too much. So he went to the pulmonologist, had x-rays, a CT scan, an MRI and all. In around 3 weeks it all was said and done and we were facing stage IV non-small cell lung cancer. The big "dino tumor" from the right lung is, 3 months later, 6 centimeters and there are 3 little mets, 2 cm and 1 cm, which are being battled with radiation. Chemo is now on round 2 and cancer has not given as many symptoms as chemo. Let's leave it like that, but, without chemo you die so that is the way I talk to him so he just puts up with it. I keep him brave by loving him but not treating him like a baby. He is a strong man and I have to keep him strong. He knows I love him but I want him to be who he is and he is not cancer. He is my dad so I think that is going to make him better. My mother has been physically taking care of him because I live far from him, she deals with a lot, the lack of appetite gets him moody and sometimes I have to remind him of what a lovely wife God gave him and how thankful he should be of her love and support. So far I think that has been a big old great challenge for: us appetite and chemo... big problem. I want other people to know that I faced this process initially with great pain but then I just got up and walked on it and ever since then I feel like I can help because I mentally decided that being sad was no help for no one. Other than that I guess and hope we are just starting on this fight. I offer this story hoping it will inspire someone out there going through the same problem. Me and my sister have cried a lot but managed to get ourselves together to fight the cancer and the pain that hits you when the statistics are shown to you. I actually get hope from other people's stories, and out of seeing him still doing what he likes. I get hope from god and from science (I work on that one... myself as a science person).
