I have a little time tonight, so I thought I would share what's been going on that is consuming most of my mental and emotional energy right now.
My dad has always been a big guy. Not just tall (he's 6' 2" or so), but large. He's always been over 200, and in the past 10 years since his parents died, his brother died suddenly, and he had two major injuries that kept him from working for months at a time, he has put on many more pounds. He got up to just under 500 last summer and injured his back from carrying all that weight around.
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Last October, after he had lost about 15 pounds preparing for his surgery |
We prayed, prayed, and prayed some more that he would seek help for his weight problem, because they refused to do anything to help his back due to how heavy he was. He couldn't stand to be on his feet, which is what his job requires him to do every day for 8 hours, so as soon as he got home he would plant himself on the couch and only get up to go to the bathroom and bed. He couldn't play with his grandchildren because he hurt so badly.
I had mentioned to my mom several times about bariatric surgery because I knew at least 4 people who had undergone the procedure and had amazing results. Finally, my husband and I got up the courage to talk to Dad about it, and even brought over some brochures to share with him from one of my friends. He was thinking about it, as a last resort, and decided to look into it.
Praise God, in February (the day after our first ultrasound for Samuel), he had gastric bypass surgery and everything seemed to go great. He lost over 200 pounds between last summer when he went to the informational meeting and started making changes and when we moved in July. Then he started having trouble keeping food down.
He had a minor procedure done to stretch his muscles, which is somewhat common after bariatric surgery, but after the 2nd time having it done, he was still having the same problems. It got so bad that he would vomit even after having just water to drink. This went on far too long (nearly a month) and he was becoming dehydrated, so he finally admitted himself to the ER at the beginning of October. After a week of being on IV fluids and running a few tests, they started looking for other causes of his vomiting and found his white blood cell count was high.
We learned a few days later that he has stage 4 stomach cancer, which is apparently treatable but not curable or operable. He started chemo yesterday and is going every 2 weeks for 6 months to fight it.
This has been heartbreaking, especially after all that he's gone through to live healthier. He looked so good this summer, better than I can remember him looking since I was little. He had energy, he walked with his head held high for the first time in many years, not shrinking back because of his weight. He played with his 3 grandsons and most importantly, was not in pain. After the month of failed attempts at rectifying the issues, now he looks almost eerily thin, his muscles are weak and deteriorating and his skin just hangs off him.
One year later, just after learning about his cancer |
My mom is barely hanging on. She is so strong, because she has to be, but I know it's killing her inside to see him go through this. She is a Christian, so she has her faith to help her through, but we are still not sure whether Dad is truly saved or not. We have presented the Gospel to him many times, have prayed with him and for him to know and have an eternal relationship with the One True God, but we have never gotten reassurance that he is in fact saved.
If you are the praying type, please say a prayer for my family. For my dad, for complete healing and for his spirit not to be broken, and for his salvation; for my mom, that she has the energy to keep encouraging him and to help him get through this. Thank you so much and God bless.