i can't even think of a title for this one...

I took my dad to get his first tattoo today. 

It was nothing fancy, nor does it serve as a way to preserve a special life memory. To be honest, Dad really didn't want a tattoo at all.

But, well, we've all heard it said. Sometimes you don't always get what you wanted. And my Dad? He did not want cancer.

On Monday, I will take Dad back to the hospital, where someone will blast a devastating amount of radiation into the spot on his back that was marked. Ten rounds of radiation that will kick off tomorrow with the first of several rounds of chemotherapy.
My Dad is incredibly sick.

Five days before Christmas, what we thought was a severe cold put him in the hospital. Five days after Christmas, doctors told us it was cancer. Five days after that, we saw CT scans and PET scans filled with dark ominous shadows, and if we've learned one thing from any medical procedural program or even horror movie, dark ominous shadows never are good.

Lung cancer. Stage IV. That's the biggest enemy come to fight.

But it didn't come alone. It brought friends. Vile, ugly friends that have taken up residency on his spleen, adrenal gland, lymph nodes near his lung, and on a rib.

We're attacking this monster. 

Strike that. DAD'S attacking it.

For now.

I'm not sure for how long, though. I've shared before my Dad's unfortunate bit of medical luck. Though we are just learning of this newest issue, the reality is, it's probably been festering away inside of him for a year or two, breaking him down, staking its claim. It wants him.

I don't want it to get him...but I see him and I see someone who brought a pistol to a knife fight, and that pistol is, sadly, minus ammunition. This may be too much. I don't even like typing the following words - I think it IS too much - but that is the reality of things right now. It probably IS too much.

I have spent the entirety of 2013 so far bawling like a baby. I dread the idea that I'm already in mourning, but I am, in a way. I fight off tears all day at work, and go to bed each night exhausted with emotion. Waking in the middle of the night brings a fresh batch of tears to the surface, and I wake a few hours later with lids nearly caked shut. My eyes haven't been this swollen from crying since my college boyfriend broke up with me 20 years ago. I called my dad when that happened and he consoled me through my waterworks. Today? Today we cry together.

I've spent a lot of time asking a heavenly father why, and telling my earthly father I don't know.

I really don't know.

I just know I'm incredibly, painfully sad.