When my mom left my dad Saturday night, there was still no news about the scans. I knew my dad had been ill and they had given him something to sleep and to help the vomiting. Being considerate to his needs, I waited to call until Sunday a.m.
When I called around 930 a.m., I fully expected to hear my dad was still feeling like bunk, but would be better once they scheduled the surgery to remove the gall stones (which we knew about from the first scans on Friday).
I said, "Hi, Dad. How are you doing?" My dad is such a jokester, I expected a joke about hospital food or lousy beds... not the "Not so good" that I did get from him. He had most certainly be crying...which did not bode well for the news I was about to hear. The doctor had been in early that morning and told my dad he had pancreatic cancer. My dad of course was shocked and scared by the news (as was I). No one else in our family knew yet, so I couldn't even talk to my mom or sister. My dad and I chatted for awhile, he mentioned some statistics he had been told, etc. We finally hung up.
I waited a few hours and called my mom, hoping she had been to the hospital and heard the bad news (not that I was hoping she would hear bacd news; you know what I mean) so we could talk. No dice. She said she hadn't heard any news yet, but hoped to get an updated when she went to see my dad later in the day. I hung up as quickly as I could, knowing I wouldn't be able to hold it together for any length of time.
I called my sister a little bit after that, looking to see if she had been to see dad yet. Negative.
Through the day, this news was eating at me. I was home with the 3 girls and had to be strong to take care of them, and damn, that was hard. Finally my sister called at about 6 pm. The first words out of her mouth were. "You are supposed to tell mewhen you know things." But I couldn't, beacuse it wasn't my place to tell.
Needless to say, Sunday was a REALLY long night. A lot of crying, not much sleeping, even with the last of my diazepam prescription to help.
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