Grandpa

Once again, I find myself playing catch up for a couple of blog-less weeks. A lot has been going on and I just haven't had a ton of time to sit down and update. Emma has been sick as a dog. She caught some sort of "virus" that included several days of a fever and then turned into the runny-nose-that-never-ends. She literally had a runny nose for 3 weeks straight. I decided that Gymboree might be partly to blame because the child has never really been sick before, so we opted out of the last 2 sessions. I'm glad I only paid half price for it!

Aside from her being sick, we had been having a good couple of weeks. All of that came crashing down on Saturday. We were at Brad's parents house having dinner and had just told them that we were leaving the following morning to go visit my Grandpa in Thomson. No sooner did we mention that, then I got a call from my mom, letting me know that my Grandpa had passed away. He wasn't feeling well and laid down for a nap, but didn't wake up. I was crushed.

I've always been very close to my grandparents. They lived next door to me for a majority of my life and I have so many good memories of times spent together. I'm so glad that I have those. I'm also glad that we have so many pictures and memories of taking Emma to see him. When I was pregnant with her, I was so afraid that he would never get to meet her and devastated that my Grandma never would. His health has been slowly declining over the last couple of years. When Emma was about 6 weeks old we put her in the car and drove the 2 hours to Thomson, with her screaming the entire way - she HATED the car. I'm so glad that we did that. My mom put Emma on my Grandpa's chest as he slept and he woke up to Emma snuggled up with him. I will never forget that moment. We went back to Thomson as often as we could - traveling with an infant is tough. Grandpa has a few pictures of Emma that my Aunt Claire took and had framed that he used to look at and talk about her all the time. I'm so glad that he got to know Emma a little bit and that she brought some sunshine into his life. She does that for all of us. My Grandpa was an amazing man and he will be missed terribly, though I know in my heart that he's right where he needs to be - with my Grandma holding his hand.



Just as we were mourning my Grandpa, we got some more bad news. My Dad went in for his annual PET scan that he gets yearly now that he has had cancer. He and my mom went yesterday to get the results. It wasn't great. There is another spot in his healthy lung, which is inoperable because of his diminished lung capacity because they removed 1/3 of his other lung previously. His adrenal gland, which had been swollen for some time (not sure why) is now lighting up as possibly cancerous. He also has a lymph node that wraps around his voice box that is lighting up. We're not exactly sure where we stand. He has to have a biopsy of his lung next week, and we should know more then. He also has to set up an appointment with an oncologist and talk about treatment. There has been talk of chemotherapy.

Needless to say, we're having a tough time. We're all trying to stay positive until we know more. He's beaten cancer once, though it took a huge toll on all of us as a family. We're trying to remain strong and hopeful that this can be taken care of and that he will be victorious again. I'll keep you all updated as soon as we know more.

Please keep us all in your prayers. This is a really tough time for us and we need God's grace to walk this road one step at a time.