It hurts my heart...

The original title of this article was "Cancer F*@#!^ Sucks...", but my anger has subsided. Now I'm just morose.


So I haven't told many people about this, I don't like to talk about it. I don't like conversations centered around illness, surgery, time to live, medicine, surgery, hospitals, diagnosis, etc.
I'm the clown. The "ToneBone". I tell the jokes. I make people laugh. I let other people talk about serious things and I entertain. The modern day jester. It's the only way I know how to be.
I can wax philosophical and go toe-to-toe with anybody except Adam (I've never met a better verbal tactician, but it is more or less what he majored in). I just choose not to. When you discuss things of weight and significance, you risk differences and upsetting people. I am aspiring hippy and I'd rather just get a long. Besides I know whom I disagree with and just avoid those topics or people entirely.


(Any following information about the cancer is my understanding from talking to Lynette and overhearing phone conversations.)
Lynette's sister-in-law, Sherrie, has cancer. For those of you that helped Lynette move to her new house, it was that sister-in-law, Danny's wife. I don't know if they have tacked down the specific type, but it is pervasive through her abdomen, pancreas, and liver. When cancer gets to your liver, that is about all the doctor wrote. (No pun intended.) It is centered around a mass in her abdomen. It causes her body to produce excess amounts of fluid. For a week, her doctors were draining several ounces of fluid out of her body.


For a week or so, she was heavily drugged and totally unaware of what was happening to her. I could tell by listening to her talk that she did not know how serious her situation was. Everytime Lynette got an update on what the various doctors were saying, it was worse and worse. It went like this:



*She has cancer.

*Her body is retaining fluids that make her abdomen swell huge, which causes her back pain.

*The cancer is pervasive: in her abdomen(stomach), liver and pancreas.

*Once cancer is in your liver, that's "curtains". (Lynette told me that once the cancer is in your liver that is a pretty bad sign.)

*She has ovarian and pancreatic cancer, plus a mass in her abdomen and on her liver.

*She's started chemotherapy and is on all kinds of drugs.

The worst part is how it's affecting the family. Everybody is somber. The kids are sad all the time. Devan, Lynette's nephew, acts out just to get attention. Negative, is better than none. They cry all the time because mom and dad are never at home and they don't understand why.
Danny hides away in video games and riding his ATV. Lynette's parents are exhausted from taking care of a whole family 24/7.

If I were Danny, I'd probably just die. I'd become a vegetable and of no help to anyone.

It's been amazing to see how he has changed. He's become so tender and patient. He waits on Sherrie like a servant. It's so loving.

But I can't blame him for hiding away in his new computer game version of Halo. I would need an escape every few hours too.

On the brink of marriage, I can't even imagine what I'd do if Lynette were in the same predicament.

I can't even imagine...