Friday the 13th

It's funny. I certainly never considered myself to be superstitious. Or certainly not to any real degree. But from this point on, I will not be able to look at Friday the 13th the same way ever again.

I talk to my mom and dad a lot on the phone. Especially my mom. A lot more than probably your average kid. But she's one of my best friends. I'm close to my dad, but I'm definitely closer to my mom, which is funny, because that was not the case when I was younger (think teenage years when girls and moms clash).

On my way home from work, I called my parents house to chat with my mom. I do this often, like, more than a couple of times a week kind of often. I got the answering machine. I tried again later. same deal. Knowing that my parents do have lives, while maybe not very exciting at times, I didn't think much of it. So I called my mom Saturday morning (another fairly common occurrence).

I asked my mom how we night was and how her day was going. This is when i find out my dad is in the hospital. Apparently he had several of the duodenal spasms he and my mom sometimes get, and went to the doctor, who thought it may be something more. CT showed what they thought to be gall stones. And my dad won himself an overnight stay at CPH.

My dad is not a complainer by nature. And being of the male species, is also not one to go to the doctor until near on his death bed. More testing, including a CT scan with contrasting dye, showed certainty of gall stones--and the worst news yet--a tumor on the pancreas, most likely pancreatic cancer.