Well Hello Cancer, Please, Make Yourself Comfortable

So, it turns out that if you have what seems to be a dinosaur egg lodged in your armpit, you might have a reason to be concerned.  We learned that the hard way about 6 weeks ago when my little brother opted to get his armpit egg checked out instead of waiting to see if it hatched.  What's weird is that it kind of hatched anyway.  Well, it didn't so much hatch as it did copy itself a billion times.  That's the thing about lymphoma.  Those damn lymphocytes don't know when to stop.  You know, kind of like gremlins.  And pretty soon you've got a lymphocyte party going on inside your body, but you didn't get the memo.  By the time you realize something is not quite right, you've dropped 20 pounds. you're having night sweats that would rival any menopausal woman, and you've got a dinosaur egg in your armpit.  After several rounds of testing and the eventual removal of the over sized egg, which was actually a tumor (surprise!!!), he was told that he has Hodgkin's Lymphoma, stage 4.  Aka: cancer.  That was 1 month ago.  He's now had 2 of the 12 recommended chemotherapy treatments, which so far, haven't sucked nearly as bad as he was anticipating.  We've all been kind of psyched about that.  But let's journey on shall we?

About 3 weeks ago my dad had a run in with the stomach flu.  He got over it pretty quickly but couldn't seem to kick the dull ache in his abdomen.   Enter extremely high doses of Advil.  A week later he was still in pain so he took a quick trip to the ER for a CAT scan.  Results were unclear but they said it looked "cloudy" (code for we don't know).  There was also a small portion of his small bowel with a "thickened wall".  Pain continued, and seemed to be worsening, so naturally, my mother dragged him in for a colonoscopy, which I'm sure he deeply appreciated.  He was actually excited to announce that the doctor told him his colon looked like that of a 20 year old kid.  We were all very proud.  He was then referred to a general surgeon, which really should have tipped us off, but alas, we remained blissfully clueless.  Until of course, said general surgeon suggested removing the thickened portion of his bowel and the"cloudy-ness" surrounding it.  That recommendation didn't sit well at all.  Surgery was scheduled and then immediately cancelled.  But the pain remained.  Second opinions, third opinions, and even our beloved Google didn't seem to have any good answers.  And really, if Google can't come up with something that fits, you know you're screwed.  There was nothing to do but reschedule the surgery.  Which brings us to last Tuesday.  5 days ago.  My dad went in for a bowel resection.  And yes, it was every bit as fun as you might imagine.  He loved waking up to staples in his belly, and who needs that 6 inches of intestine anyway.  What he didn't love was receiving the diagnosis (that diagnosis story alone could fill an entire blog, so I'll tackle it later on).  He has Diffused B-cell Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (stage 4).  Aka: cancer.  

So let's do the math here.  My brother has lymphoma, and my dad has lymphoma.  Now, I'm not good with numbers, but my calculations tell me that that's a lot of people in one family to be diagnosed with cancer within the same month (or year, or decade really).  Surely, it must be genetic, you say.  But that's not possible for two reasons.  One, they're two entirely different types, and two, my little brother is adopted.  So yeah, that theory's out.  My mother is starting to think it's her cooking, which if you know my mom, you know is an absolutely insane notion. The truth is, there's nothing that could possibly link these things together.  In fact, nobody has any clue what even causes these specific cancers.  They are their own dictators and they don't discriminate.  So really, our only choice is to give them the bird and bust out our machine guns.  That's right leukocytes, the party's over.

I've started this blog to keep our family and friends updated on Sam's (my brother), and Bruce's (my dad - but referring to him as "Bruce" seems weird and unnatural, so I'll just call him Dad) treatment and progress.  It's also for any other people out there who may have stumbled onto this blog because of their own or a loved one's unfortunate diagnosis.  To all you folks, my heart aches for you in a way I never could have imagined.  But don't despair.  Join with us in this adventure of the most undesirable kind.  Oh, and bring you're gun.  Unless of course you live in New York.  You guys can bring your, um...sling shots.