Pictures to follow later.

We were both a bit bummed out, because we were really hoping for a boy; Ann because boys are so much easier to raise, and me because I wanted a child to teach karate to. Oh well. I guess we can always try again. NOT! Really, though, I’m just happy because I saw 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 eyes, a nose, 2 lips, 2 ears… you get the point.

My aunt called me at work around 8am this morning. I didn’t get the voicemail right away, because I was away from my desk. I called her back as soon as I could, and she informed me that my dad had taken a bad turn. His bp was really low, he was having difficulty breathing, and he was non-responsive. As you can imagine, I didn’t get much done at work today. I spent most of the day thinking about him. I called my step-mom about 6:30 tonight, and she told me that he was hanging in there. He had started responding a bit, but still wasn’t good. She put the phone up to his ear, and I said, “Hi Pa,” to him. She told him it was me, and he responded to her with, “Hi Pa.” That tells me that he heard me.

My uncle called me a little after 2 this morning (Tuesday) and told me that my dad was gone. He passed about 1:55am. It’s only been a little over 3 months since he was daignosed with cancer. The initial prognosis was 4-8 months. I guess they were wrong on that one. The strange thing is that it’s actually kind of relieving. I loved my dad, and I didn’ t want him to die; but it was so hard to watch him suffer like that. He was in so much pain, and he was nothing more than a shell of the man he used to be. I am only glad that his suffering has ended.

In the last 5 years, I’ve lost the following people who were fairly close to me:
My father-n-law.
My brother.
My step-brother’s mother.
My step-grandmother.
My mother.
My uncle Bill.
My mother-n-laws boyfriend of several years.
Ann’s aunt Shirley passed just this morning from cancer.

This morning, my father was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer. Details aren’t completely clear yet, but he has 2 tumors in his head and another large mass in his lungs. He has the same symptoms as Ann’s dad had when he died of the same thing. I don’t know how long dad’s got, but most people die within 3 months of being diagnosed with this type of tumor.

Seriously. This sucks ass!