“I have stage 4 cancer…” -Dad

“So, uh, you know how I have been having some pain in my ribs lately? Well, the doctors think it’s lung cancer and it has already spread to my bones.” -My dad casually delivered the worst news I had ever heard thus far in the first 28 years of my life.

August 17, 2015 is a day I will never forget. I remember this phone call so well and it replays in my mind like a broken record, just telling me the bad news repeatedly. I had just picked up my 21-month-old daughter, Kaitlyn, from daycare and was bringing her in the house, along with my brand new 13-day-old newborn baby girl, Kinsley. I answered the phone and told him to hold on quickly, while I got my daughters situated. I assumed he was calling just to ask how I was healing and how his granddaughters were doing. Nope, he was just calling to tell me that he was dying. With the worst phone call of my life, things were about to be twisted upside down in a way I never thought possible. My dad was going to die. I asked him what the odds were, and he said the doctor told him that he likely has a year on average. And then my dad cried. I have never seen or heard my dad cry before, so talk about a real punch in the gut. My dad was a strong mechanic who grew up and was raised on a farm and never really showed much emotion, at least around us, kids, because well that’s how he was raised.

After we got off the phone, I cried. And cried. And cried some more. At that moment, I felt complete shock at his diagnosis. Sure, he had been complaining of his side hurting, but we all had just assumed it was a pulled muscle or strained rib or something. While it was painful, we never expected to hear him diagnosed with the dreaded “C” word.

I am so grateful my husband, Jeff was there with me at that moment, as I needed some time to just let it out and not have to worry about my two kiddos. He held me, wiped my tears, and took care of the girls for a couple of hours while I tried to process everything. As a mom to two girls under three years old, I was in for a tumultuous and bumpy ride – trying to navigate all the postpartum feelings, emotions, lack of sleep, and also trying to come to terms with the fact that I was going to watch my dad suffer tremendously and die. Thank goodness I was on maternity leave though, so I could break down and cry whenever I wanted, and my babies were too young to understand why their mom was a blubbering mess. I don’t know how I would have held my composure and had to keep going to work after hearing my dad’s fresh diagnosis.

My dad was diagnosed with a form of lung cancer. My dad was never a smoker, but his previous significant others were smokers and he worked in a mechanics shop since he finished trade school and back then, before indoor smoking was banned, the employees were constantly lighting up cigarettes inside. As a mechanic, he was constantly inhaling fumes and exhaust. I blame his cancer diagnosis on his employment and secondhand smoke exposure. It somehow made me feel better that I was able to place blame on something.

Little did I know that August 17, 2015 was the start of my anticipatory grief (the grief you feel when you know a loved one is going to die soon, usually after a poor prognosis) and would be the fuel of my already existing anxiety and depression. I was in for the fight of my own life and I didn’t even know it yet.

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This photo is of my dad with my baby girl - the last day I would see my dad before his life-changing diagnosis. He was such a proud grandpa! I am so sad that he is missing out on being a grandpa and getting to watch my daughters grow up.

Follow along as I go through my dad’s illness with cancer and how I learned how to grow through my grief (eventually).