the beginning
My dad went for his annual checkups, he was constantly at the doctor making sure that his lungs were in good shape and making sure that his stomach issues weren’t progressing. My dad had a few illnesses from 9/11. I would say that for the most part they were manageable, but that doesn’t take away from the pain that he did experience. He suffered from severe PTSD (especially survivors’ guilt), sleep apnea, GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease), sinus infections, migraines, and RAD (radical airway disease) to name a few.
We always sort of teased my dad in the sense that my mom is the one with MS but on any given day if we didn’t know where daddy was, we could probably guess that he was at a doctor. Unlike my mom who only went to visit a doctor when she had to.
January of 2019, my dad set a goal for himself to get healthier. He was definitely getting chubby and we gave him shit for it. He walked 5 miles just about every day at the park and also went to a personal trainer as well. It was something that was really great for him because he wasn’t stuck inside all day, and for most of his life he had always been in shape anyway. Even before he got sick, he could grab me and pick me up without a problem, and for someone who was almost 60 years old that was pretty impressive.
From time to time my dad would say, “I don’t want to get sick” or “I am scared of getting sick” and we would always tell him that he wouldn’t. I was completely unaware of just how many people were falling ill due to being down at ground zero. I know that my dad had friends who got sick post 9/11 but what I failed to realize was how many people were getting sick. I had always thought that there could be a chance that someone could get sick but as this last month progressed it seems like getting sick is not a matter of if but when.
This past summer, my dad had been complaining that his stomach was bothering him. He visited his gastro doctor and went in for a colonoscopy and endoscopy, both of which came back clean. I believe he also went for a cat scan back in April that came back clean as well. The doctor prescribed him some medicines but none of it seemed to work. My dad also had a few herniated disks in his back and would usually have back pain, but this past summer he was complaining of it more and more and was constantly at the chiropractor.
His pain in his stomach progressed throughout the summer, it just wouldn’t go away. The gastro doctor did diagnose him with ulcers and diverticulitis (which I heard can be very painful). But no matter what he took, the pain it just never subsided.
And then came September.
I presented my thesis September 19th and my mom was planning on making me a special dinner for when I came home. Anyone who knows my dad knows that 1. He inhales his food and 2. LOVES food. My mom cooked up a special dinner for me that night and my dad said he didn’t feel well at all and went upstairs to rest. It was very odd for my dad to miss a meal. I knew my dad felt bad about missing my celebratory meal and said, “don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you.”
Anyhow, his pain progressed until finally my mom dragged him to the emergency room on September 29th. The day had changed my families’ lives forever. I was working at the clothing store in my town when my mom sent a group text to me and my sister that she was taking dad to the emergency room. For all I knew, I really thought my dad was being a little dramatic about his pain and they would give him some stronger medicine and he would go home being perfectly fine. Well, to say that I was wrong was an understatement.
Me and my sister visited him in the ER with my mom and they said that they were going to run a scan and we would get the results over shortly. Me, my mom, and my sister left him to go home until he got his results back. I was sitting in bed watching Netflix when I heard my mom’s phone ring and all I heard her scream was, “oh no.” My heart and stomach dropped. I immediately knew that the second that I would get out of bed that life as I knew it would be changed forever.
We immediately jumped back in the car and went back to the hospital. We ran up to my dad’s bed in the emergency room and we all started crying. He said that they found spots all over his body, in his stomach area and his lungs. We all knew where this was heading, and we just didn’t know how to process this information. How could someone who was generally healthy (I say this with a grain of salt) be all of a sudden very sick?
The emergency room doctor came in and explained to my immediate family as well as to my aunt and uncle who rushed over that my dad had blood clots in his lungs and lesion like spots in the stomach area. He kept my family cautiously optimistic and explained that if we can get some older scans and compare it to the new scan that there could be a possibility that these spots had always been there, and it could be harmless.
My dad stayed in the hospital for a week, where they moved him around and finally to the oncology unit. They wouldn’t say the word cancer, but we all knew, and my dad definitely knew. They did a liver biopsy on my dad to find out where the cells could have started from. They wanted to confirm if it was pancreatic cancer or liver cancer. My dad was really strong that week, which was nothing new because he was strong his whole life.
It wasn’t until the end of the week that they gave my dad the diagnoses. Stage 4 pancreatic cancer that had metastasized into his liver. I would like to put this nicely. But I can’t. He knew he was fucked.
Me and him and a private moment after his official diagnosis. He told me he was going to fight this, and that he would be okay. I knew the diagnosis could be fatal and I wanted my dad to try his hardest to get rid of this cancer.
The week that he went into the hospital was chaos. It was a shit show of figuring out the official diagnosis, getting him certified for a 9/11 related cancer, finding and getting him into the best hospitals with the best doctors.
The hardest part was hearing this diagnosis and not knowing what was going to happen next. How soon does chemo start? Can we even do chemo? What are the other treatment options? Can we do surgery? Can surgery even remove the tumors? Why didn’t the doctors find this sooner? Why didn’t other tests pick up on this? Who fucked up along the way? What are the chances he will beat this? Is life going to be normal again?
As the questions ran through my head, all I could think of is my dad and how he was taking this. The diagnosis sucked, but what sucked even more was that my dad knew something like this could happen and nobody did anything extra to prevent it. As the week unfolded at the hospital, I could see that his worst nightmare was happening. Being at Ground Zero had finally caught up to him.
He had already given so much. He gave 23 years of service to the FDNY and months cleaning up after the attacks. He had already suffered through other post 9/11 illnesses and the sadness of losing friends that he had worked with for over a decade. Hadn’t the guy already been put through too much already? My anxiety was high for the whole week and the weeks following after. I am someone who needs to know the “why” to everything. Why did this happen? Why did nobody do anything? Why did this have to happen to my dad? Why my family?
The weeks following were anything but normal. He had so many medications that my sister had to organize a medication chart of what to give my dad and when. We had to step up and become his caretakers. We did it proudly because the focus was on my dad getting better and we wanted to take care of him the way he had always taken care of us.
The nurses at Monmouth Medical Center were amazing. They treated my dad with the utmost attention and respect that he deserved. The doctors on the other hand were a little bit cold. At least that’s how I felt. Maybe they were just more realistic. I could never be able to put into words the feeling of finding out my dad’s diagnosis and seeing him go through that. The feeling still makes my stomach drop.
This was just the beginning of the end. The beginning of 6 ½ weeks that flew by faster than I ever thought time could. This was simply the beginning of an incurable diagnosis. The following post will be dedicated to the events following the week after the hospital.
Here’s to the amazing nurses at Monmouth Medical Center and the amazing care they gave my dad that week.
