My Dad

My Dad… My dad was the funniest man I knew, who always had the room laughing. He never knew how to dance, but always tried. He was tone deaf, but when a song came on that he loved, he tried to sing it anyway. He was kind and warm in his own way, and goofy as all hell. My dad was an amazing man, and boy did he love us dearly.

In December 2022, it came to my attention that mortality lives a lot closer to home than we ever anticipated, than we’d care to welcome or admit. To understand how near to us mortality has been for quite some years, you first have to know about my mom’s battle with cancer.

My mom, Robin, was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer in October 2016. It was immediately decided that she must have surgery to remove the cancer, so she did, and then underwent months of incredibly aggressive chemotherapy. It was devastating to all of us, and most of all to my mom, our family's rock.

In early 2017, just as my mom was finishing chemo, my dad, Gary, was diagnosed with his first type of cancer. The fact that we had to face yet another cancer was crushing.

In mid-2017, my dad was diagnosed with a second form of cancer and had one of his kidney's surgically removed, to later find the cancer still persisted.

October 2017, my dad was put on an oral chemo drug and he had a bad reaction to it. The drug slowly began to shut down his body and organs, and put him in the hospital for 3.5 weeks, nearly killing him. Fortunately, I said “nearly.”

December 2017, my dad began a 2-year round of immunotherapy to fight his kidney cancer, while prostate cancer treatment was put on hold due to kidney treatment being of greater importance. Immunotherapy went on for a while, and fortunately, 2018 was a lighter year for us in the cancer department.

But then January 2019 came around and my dad's gallbladder became incredibly infected and required surgical removal. His recovery from that surgery began.

February 2019, my dad's previous gallbladder infection lingered and he required additional surgical intervention to remove the remaining infection.

October 2019, dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, his third form of cancer, and underwent surgical removal of the mass. His recovery began...again.

Somewhere in 2019, my mom was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Fortunately, this was a very simple surgery, but scary nonetheless.

March 2020, COVID hit and prevented my family and I from seeing each other for 1.5 years, because we couldn’t risk traveling and getting my dad sick with covid, something that could be lethal to his immunocompromised body. After COVID appeared, my dad isolated from the world for years to avoid risking his health.

From August 2020 through September 2021, my dad was admitted to the hospital multiple times with Organizing Pneumonia. He was in the hospital for weeks at a time and restarted his recovery all over again each time.

In December 2022, my dad was diagnosed with terminal neuroendocrine cancer, a very rare, very aggressive form of cancer. He started chemo pretty quickly after receiving the diagnosis. The doctors originally found tumors in his abdomen on his liver, but of course, with the aggressive nature of this type of cancer, it spread to his brain and upper chest cavity as well. So he also had radiation to the brain. Radiation was wildly successful, but chemotherapy kept causing my dad’s platelets to drop, and thus, he had to stop chemo because his body couldn’t handle it. This was devastating, because chemo was actually working, keeping the cancer at bay.

In February 2024, my dad received the news there was nothing more the radiation oncologist could do. His medical team conferred, and so we waited.

March 2024, we received the official news that there was truly nothing left to try for treatment. My dad was given 3-6 months left to live, so we started to make plans to travel together as a family, so my dad could live his remaining months magically. During our planning and after receiving his prognosis, my dad started on Hospice Care at home. We were going to start Physical Therapy so he could gain some strength for traveling. The day my dad started on Hospice was the day his rapid decline began. My dad was fighting for his life every day, every breath. We lost him just 3 weeks after finding out there was nothing else to do to fight his cancer.

On March 29, 2024 at 8:00 pm, surrounded by his loving family, my amazing dad lost his battle with cancer and left the world.

For 7 years, my dad fought so hard. He fought with all his might, and he won 3 times, miraculously. He left this world with a winning record against cancer, winning 3 out of 4 times. My dad was never the most optimistic person, but he always expected to win this battle. The pain, anguish and agony that my family has been through together through 6 different cancers collectively is enough to destroy a village. We’ve stayed strong as a family unit, and believe it or not, our family’s battles with cancer brought us even closer together. But each of us hurts deeply.

Our hearts are broken at the loss of my dad, my mom’s beloved husband. A man the world truly loved. If you’d ever met my dad, you loved him, there wasn’t really any way around that. He was a hilarious, kind, pain in the ass, wonderful person, and easy to love.

My dad leaves behind his two daughters, Megan and Devin, his wife Robin, his sister Sheri, and his two grand-pups, Stella and Houston. During his last couple of weeks, my dad was surrounded by people who loved him most. He knew how well loved he was, and for that, I am grateful.

I love you, Dad. Until the next time <3

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