Pops

In August of 2005, my father was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) and had his kidney removed. In October of 2005, he was diagnosed with a distinct and unrelated cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma. I became pregnant in November of 2005 and miscarried in January. It has been one of my greatest fears that however I end up becoming a parent, my child won’t know my father. He just told me today, in between joking around, that he received the results back from a CT scan and will be starting chemo after a short visit to New York, mid-May. I’m not normally a crier - well, that’s not entirely true, but at the very least, I usually restrain myself to times and places I feel are more appropriate, but most definitely, not at work. When I got off the phone - I just sat in my office and sobbed. I started to believe, that maybe, just maybe, he’d licked this thing. This has hit me like a ton of bricks.

My parents don’t know of my status. We decided to tell them at the end of next week when I reached that magic number of weeks (you know the one). I certainly haven’t lost my fears on that front either - I saw my new doc on the 12th (very elegant, very French, very anti-episiotomy) and won’t seen anyone again until the 2nd when I have the nuchal fold scan.

So, I sit, I wait, I cry, and I worry about my pops.