rivka

We spent the Christmas holidays in Memphis this year, with

curiousangel's father. We were down there for a week, which is a long time to be in Memphis. But we stayed that long for good reasons.

Michael's father has non-small cell lung cancer.

He was diagnosed in September. Stage III-B, as far as we can figure: when they found the cancer, it had spread as far as a lymph node in his neck, but hadn't metastasized to other organs or to the bone. It's inoperable. He spent the fall going through a grueling and painful course of chemotherapy, which was abruptly stopped in the beginning of December when it became clear that the tumor sites weren't shrinking. Now he's started a six-week course of radiation therapy.

Lung cancer is never a good diagnosis. Stage III-B is never a good stage. Not responding to chemo is never a good sign. At best, the 5-year survival rate for Stage III lung cancer is less than 10%. Median survival time, depending on treatment, is about 8-18 months.

At this point, we're fairly confident that he will live to see his first grandchild, but we're not really making any plans beyond that.

Spending Christmas together was nice. He's recovered from the horrible effects of chemo, but the radiation side effects haven't kicked in yet. So he's got some of his energy back. He was able to enjoy our visit - he cooked steaks for us on the grill when the weather warmed up, showed a lot of interest in the baby, advised us about life insurance, told stories about Michael's infancy. At the same time, he's obviously, and understandably, terrified. And the chemo left deep emotional scars: he kept almost compulsively telling us how bad it had been, the same stories over and over.

He talked more than usual about Michael's mother, who died of cancer in 1998.

It's frustrating, being this far away. It's even more frustrating to know that there's going to be, probably, a three-month period between when the midwife says I have to stop flying and when the baby and I are well enough to make the long trip to Memphis. I want to help. I want to be able to rush there on a moment's notice if he needs us, if Michael needs to see him, if something changes, and instead I'm pinned here by my belly.

But however hard it is for me, of course it's a thousand times harder for Michael. I'm doing what I can to support him, but honestly, there's not much that can be done. It's just going to be hard and awful.

I haven't posted about this before because I kept thinking that it was Michael's news. But he hasn't been inclined to post about it, and it's also my news. We're going to need the support of our friends.