Terminal

In 1967, my dad, at the age of fifteen, almost died. He was diagnosed with diabetes and had to start taking insulin. For almost 40 years, he had relatively few complications from the disease.

In 1994, my dad's kidneys failed and he was placed on dialysis.

In 1996, he had a kidney and pancreas transplant. In the twelve years since that transplant, he has had no complications related to this procedure.

From 1996-2006, he was in and out of the hospital and sick off and on with various illnesses. Most of them were made worse by the fact that his immune system was suppressed from the anti-rejection medication required due to the transplant.

In 2006, we were blown away when he was diagnosed with relatively late stage esophageal cancer. The cancer was actually caught rather early, but it had grown fast since he didn't have an immune system to slow the growth. He had a portion of his esophagus removed. He has had numerous complications from this surgery including, but not limited to, the inability to swallow.

In 2007, he was diagnosed with cancer in his mouth. He had been in pain for months and had numerous CT scans which never showed cancer. But, it was back. There was a mass on his jaw bone, so they removed almost half of his lower jaw and pulled up part of his chest muscle to "replace" the part of the jaw that was removed. He went through chemo and radiation this time.

Today, he was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. It is in his arms, legs, hips, and just about everywhere else. They also believe it is in his liver and possibly other organs, but it doesn't really matter because they can't treat it. Hospice has been called in.

It's crazy. He has been fighting and evading death for over 12 years., well really longer I guess. For the past two or three years, I have been preparing myself for this phone call - or so I thought. Nope, not prepared. Not shocked, but not prepared. I am already grieving like he is gone, but I just talked to him on the phone. He sounds good. He knows this is going to kill him, but he sounds okay.

For now, we anticipate only a few more weeks, or maybe months, for him to live. My hope for him is that he continues to enjoy a good quality of life for however long he can and then he just slips away quietly in his sleep. No pain, no anticipation.

We're Home

We had a great time. It was really hot, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

Indy Speed Track at Magic Kingdom

Animal Kingdom (there's a male gorilla in the background) - funny/scary story here - We were looking at the gorillas and all of a sudden one picks up a huge rock and throws it toward the group. Apparently, he had seen a rabbit and was trying to hit it. Then, he took off chasing it. Who knew gorillas could move so fast - it scared us because it actually looked like he was charging our group. Jason did comment, though, that he was a little disappointed with the gorillas aim. He said the rock didn't even come close to hitting the rabbit.

The Boneyard in the Animal Kingdom - had a great play area that looked like an excavation site and had a "bone dig" for the kids.

Epcot - it rained that day, but after the storm was over the park was pretty emptied out and we got to go on more rides than we would have otherwise.

It's a Small World - our last ride of the trip.

Dylan hated the character dining experiences. There was one where he sat with his face hidden against the back of his seat and wouldn't turn around to look or eat the entire time. The second one we did, he still wouldn't interact with the characters, but he did at least turn around and eat. After that we cancelled the rest of the character dinners. Brady, on the other hand, loved it.

Meeting Cinderella - he was in love

Pooh - he couldn't take his eyes off of the characters at lunch this day.

Tigger - probably his favorite of the day

Eyore

Dylan really enjoyed meeting some of the characters (I guess because it was on his own terms).

Mickey and Minnie

Donald

Goofy

Pluto

We will definitely be going back, but not until Brady is several years older - hopefully by that point we won't need to lug a stroller around everywhere.

WE ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD

We leave Friday and will return late Thursday night. I am so excited and hope Dylan and Brady really enjoy it.