remembering Super Bowl Sunday 2012 and lung cancer

For six weeks through the holiday season I had concealed from everyone my fears and anxieties through a parade of scans as my nodule labels grew ever more menacing from vague to spiculated to suspicious.

Finally I was scheduled for CT Guided Needle Biopsy of my lung as outpatient surgery at Holy Spirit Hospital first thing in the morning after the 2012 Super Bowl.

At the eleventh hour I was informed I would need someone to drive me home and monitor me. … No, no, no! No one was supposed to know.

Fate, hand of God, or whatever … our 23 year old adult daughter was living at home. Could I turn to this young person who already has one parent in a care facility with severe Multiple Sclerosis?

Megan and Dad April 1988

Soooo on Super Bowl Sunday 2012 after orchestrating yet another facade of transporting my wife to her parents' house then back to her care facility, I sat down with my daughter to explain my fears and why I had concealed what I was going through from everyone including her.

“Dad, it’s OK. I want to be there!” … and with that simple absolution my daughter became my co-conspirator in silence for the next 6 weeks.

Somewhere in a dusty theatre in my mind an old sports movie played, “winners always want the ball when the game is on the line” … I remember desperately repeating to myself, real men don’t cry. 

Patrick Leer

Health Activist:

Caregivingly Yours, MS Caregiver @ http://caregivinglyyours.blogspot.com/

My Lung Cancer Odyssey @ http://lung-cancer-survivor.blogspot.com/

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