For the first time since I started this journey on my blog I’ve been at a loss for words for weeks now. The words wouldn’t form in my head. I had no urge to write them down. I had no need to process. Usually when I write I don’t edit. It goes straight from my brain to post. I believe in being unfiltered in case you’re like me and that’s how your brain works too. I basically explode word vomit on a screen and share it with my world. But this one did not come easy, and I doubt I’ll edit after I write because I still almost don’t believe it. Or I really don’t want to believe I am dealing with something so big in a short amount of time. Let’s just recount the last 2 years in an extremely short recap. Mom passed away. The cat my Mom got John and I passed away. I lost my Uncle. I’m involved in a lawsuit to do with said Uncle’s will. My dad lost his job because he ‘wasn’t himself’. I was driving over 3 hours a day to my new job while dealing with the weight of the world on my shoulders. We moved. We moved again to a house we bought. Ceiling light fell and a couple of inches of water fell with it. Our house was tagged with spray paint.
There were amazing things that happened too. But this isn’t one of those.
I received a call that there was something wrong with my Dad. He had a headache that was so severe paramedics were called. His girlfriend called me and I am pretty sure I got to his house in record time. He had been having headaches on and off for weeks. I begged him to go see a doctor. I gave him the name of a free clinic. Please just go get your bloodwork done. Please. I pulled out my ‘I am down one parent’ card. I threatened. He was fine Saturday. I saw him Sunday. I called him Monday. Monday night he couldn’t even get out of bed without falling over. He was taken out of the house as I randomly started grabbing clothes. Couldn’t find a belt. Tried to make sure I got the right size jeans. Did this shirt have holes in it? I am not bringing him New Balance sneakers. I walked out of my Dad’s house to flashing lights as I tried not to trip over anything.
And this is how I found myself in the emergency room where I lost my Mom 2 years and 4 months minus one day. And I was literally staring down the hallway where I saw her for the last time. And how I was now standing next to my Dad who couldn’t even form a sentence unless it was ‘my head. It hurts’. I can’t remember a time I had ever seen my Dad in a hospital. The only time I remember seeing him in pain was when he had his skiing accident. Man, do I hate the emergency room at Mease Countryside. I’m tired of getting shit news in the same hospital over and over.
We got the answer back after a CT scan. My Dad has a brain tumor. Possibly cancer. It’s on his cerebellum. It’s keeping his spinal fluid from being reabsorbed by his body. His head was basically swelling with nowhere to go. He was also losing blood and we had no idea from where. We had to take an ambulance to another hospital with a neurosurgeon because it had to come out. If he didn’t get there at that time the reality would have been: he would have slipped into a coma and not woken up.
Of course at this time I can tell you this was a Monday, and I had just dropped John off on Sunday to go to Kansas for two weeks. So he got a phone call from me at night to tell him my Dad had a brain tumor. Cool.
My Dad had to get a drain put into his head to allow the excess spinal fluid to drain. Surgery was set for Monday. I didn’t go home until 5 in the morning. I slept for a couple of hours and went into work to tell them what was happening. My Dad was not all there even though he was cracking jokes. He was so god damn sassy. He was stubborn. He didn’t understand what was going on, or why we freaked out when he went to go touch his head. I hadn’t really slept or ate. John was coming home.
“It’s more than likely metastatic cancer”
So to put this in perspective for you best case scenario right now is he just had a benign brain tumor. Second best case scenario is it was just brain cancer. That’s the world we were living in. They found a small nodule on his lung. They found something on his colon. And I found myself hoping for anything but lung cancer because it would be stage 4. I stayed the night Tuesday and I swear I only got 30 minutes of sleep. Dad swore I slept for 2 hours. I slept with one eye open and he still managed to mess up both IVs. So I am going on day three with maybe 4 hours of sleep and next to no food. Dad still had another day to go before surgery. He was frustrated and I tried to explain what was happening but I knew he wasn’t retaining any information.
Thursday was surgery day. It was very emotional when they wheeled him out. But of course this is the Munroe family. You think we just have one thing go wrong? No. Grandpa Munroe had to be taken down to the ER because his blood pressure dropped. He is perfectly fine, could’ve used a granola bar and some juice. As scary as that was it was also some sort of comedic relief. It gave us something else to focus on for the time being.
We waited. And waited some more. I sent John home to get some sleep because one of us had to drive home eventually and it wasn’t going to be me. I hallucinated a piece of parsley moved on a stuffed mushroom the night before. Not it. They called me when he went into surgery and every 2 hours after. But they finished early. That either meant it went really good or really bad. We waited. And then the doctor came out. I’m still over here hoping it’s not cancer, or hoping it’s not metastatic cancer. It was metastatic cancer. And I went into my spiral. Because all I kept thinking was now it could be lung. It could be colon. It could be an advanced stage of cancer. I could be losing my dad. I was staring down the barrel of losing another parent before my 28thbirthday. This isn’t fair. I can’t do this again. No no no no no no no.
And then family surrounded me and listened to me and supported me. Listen, my life in terms of events that happen has been kind of shitty. But my family always shows up. And not just blood family, I mean my whole family. They show up for me, for my dad, for each other. I believe you’re only as strong as your support system, and man is the support system strong for our family. And I’m so thankful for that. For every single person that showed up you have no idea what that meant to me. Special shoutout to my Munroe girls because I seriously don’t know what I would do without you two.
So I got through my spiral and sucked it up because I had to slip back to being strong again. Because that’s what you do. That’s what you have to do. You get to break for a little bit, and then you shake it off. My Dad made it through surgery fine. They got all of the visible tumor they could see. That sucker was the size of a golf ball. First hurdle done.
And then my Dad reappeared. I walked in Friday and he pointed at me and said ‘you are going’. Here I thought where the hell am I going you crazy person? I thought he was still out of it. But he stared at me and said ‘Kylie, you are going to Orlando tomorrow and you are going to meet Michael J. Fox”. There he is. I didn’t cry until I called John and told him what happened and in true John fashion of knowing us so well he said, “oh, there he is”. There he is. So that’s basically the story behind the picture if you’ve seen it. Dad couldn’t be there so I brought a picture of us with Rush. (Also Aunt Steph is a big nerd and no one told me and I’m so pumped). So for a few hours on Saturday I got to escape the hospital I had practically been living in, and I’m so glad I got to share it with my aunt.
Back to reality. We were waiting to hear back from Pathology. We heard back. He had melanoma. I remember looking at aunt Steph with a confused look on my face. He had what now? That wasn’t on my list. With a quick search though I realized that the number 4 had come back to haunt me. He has stage 4 metastatic melanoma.
In the midst of all of this before we got the results back my Dad had thought the only issue was the tumor. I remember when I realized he didn’t know and how my stomach dropped to floor as I stared at him. He thought it was all over. He thought he was at the end. He had no idea this was the beginning of a very long road. He had no idea they thought he had cancer. “Kylie, what? They got the tumor out. I’m fine.” And so, I was the one who had to explain to him that they were pretty certain he had metastatic cancer. Commence second (slightly smaller) spiral in the lobby with only one person as an audience. I swear I could’ve set the entire world on fire at this point. I’m fucking pissed.
Dad is home now until his head heals. Then we start the long journey to kick cancer’s ass.
I’m still pissed. I’m living in a fog right now, and I don’t really know how to get out of it. So I clean like it’s going out of style. And I work. And I veg out with television or books. And I wish it was all a really bad dream. With all of the bad that is going on I know we are surrounded by so much love. Dad and I are always confused when people really like us I’m finding out. Apparently that’s genetic too.
If you’ve stuck with me this far just know how much I appreciate you. I started this blog as a way to heal. As a way to relate to someone out there who might be dealing with the same stuff that I am. To process. To rant. To curse. To complain. To share my journey. Just when I think I know how life is going to go it really likes to sucker punch me and my family. But I am stronger than I was 2 years ago. I’m a different person. I know I can handle it. And I will handle it. I know my family is here to support me.
So, fuck off world. Or I’m coming for you.