thank god for friends

Patty, Chrissie, Cohen, and Jackson came over to help.  Cohen and Jackson took care of the yard work I’ve been neglecting and Patty and Chrissie helped me sand down the remaining exposed log wall in the kitchen so we can now varnish it and make it look pretty and easy to clean.  My dad still isn’t back.  I can’t allow myself to think that he will always be like this.  I don’t have any use for this feeble headed lump.  I need my dad.

spain?

Dad is still living in some mysterious time-slip world in his brain...he’s apparently in Spain and it’s 1976 (or 1989, depending on when you ask him) and I’m never quite sure if he knows who I am.  I’m having a hard time being strong and going to see him.  I am finding very good reasons not to go there every day.  On the home front, we’ve had the plumber in to fix the leaking black water pipe, so that’s one crisis done with once we cover the remainder of the pooling under the joists with lime and gravel.  Now we’re removing all the gravel from the retaining wall outside the house, fixing/ replacing the insulation and vapor barrier, backfilling with clay, tamping it solid, and then replacing the gravel.  I hate this job so much.  I have bitten off more than I can chew and I am afraid of screwing up and I’m just going to have to deal with that because my dad isn’t himself and there is no one else.  

henry wallace rempel

Henry Wallace Rempel was born today...what a week!!  It was absolutely perfect to step out of my nightmare and into Michelle and Jadon’s dream.  Henry is early, but he’s a strong little guy and both he and mommy are doing well.  Aria has a little brother!

basketball head

He made it through the surgery...26 1/2 hours.  There was a lot more cancer in there than they knew.  They had to remove his upper palate and all of his teeth, as the cancer was all over.  I can’t even express how it was to walk into that very scary intensive care room with all the very scary machines beeping and breathing and clicking and see a man that I did not recognize at all.  His head was bigger than a basketball, his face so swollen and contorted you couldn’t even make sense of it, his mouth swollen and perpetually wide open and drooling.  He has staples every 1/4 inch from one ear, over his head, all the way to the other ear.  He has drains of fluid hanging from his spine, his temples, his neck.  He is breathing through a hole in his throat.  His eyes look like those of a scared, trapped animal awaiting its fate.  It’s all too big to make sense of.  My mom held me and whispered into my ear, “it’s still him, he’s still there” but I won’t believe that until he can tell us so.  The doctors say they got all the cancer, but now we just have to wait and see how he does.  More waiting.

the longest day ever

Today they are peeling my dad’s face off, cutting a door out of the middle of his forehead, and removing cancer from his sinus, durum, and brain.  They may get in there and find it’s not operable.  They may get in there and find out the cancer is in both hemispheres of his brain, which means they can’t get it out without turning him into a different person (that part of his brain is home to his personality).  They may find more cancer than they thought and have to do more than they thought.  He might die on the table.  He might make it through the surgery and then not wake up, or worse, wake up as someone else.  And then, if all those other factors line up in a positive way, there is a chance that he will live, cancer free.  Odds keep flying through my brain, and it’s sooo hard to remain positive and believe that he is meant to stay with us.

goodnight or goodbye?

Missed my little Aria’s second birthday today, but I talked to her on the phone and saw her last week.  She’s growing up so fast...

Tonight I said goodnight to my father knowing that I may never see him again.

demolition

Dad goes in for surgery next week and Rowan and I are going to demolish my parents’ kitchen and rebuild it.  Not the best timing, but since the stove has now fallen through the rotten part of the floor, it seems like a pretty “right now” kind of project.  We will buy the cabinets, fixtures, etc. from IKEA.  We’re looking at hardwood auctions to find some incredible deal on some amazing flooring of some kind.  My mom has wanted a “real” kitchen for almost 20 years, so I’m looking forward to helping realize that dream for her.