January 31, 2008
So… I truly thought I was prepared for my dad to pass away, but it was such a reality check when I looked at it with the perspective that I am only 42 years old (which IS still young!) and both of my parents are now gone. We lost our mother in February 2007 to a rare disease called Wegener’s Granulomatosis. For her, it attacked the kidneys and she fought a tough battle over two years. She had just started preparing her body to accept a kidney transplant and was on her first week of literally 100 pills a day, when her body fought it and she suffered a heart attack. When she passed away… a large part of my father, who had spent the last 50 years married to her, went with her.
In October, after a routine checkup and a small complaint of stomach discomfort, my dad discovered he had something a bit more than a bad gallbladder (original diagnosis) during the preoperative testing. When the doctors discovered the pancreatic cancer through a pet scan, it was his choice to skip all further testing and instead, enjoy the remainder of his time as best he could without daily trips to the doctor. He chose NOT to have the exploratory surgery after watching one of his older sisters take that route earlier in the year and find no success.
Back to my reality check… My mother died of a very rare disease, my father died of pancreatic cancer (along with his dad and three of his sisters) where does that leave me, my brother and sister, and all of our children? It appears we really need to get on the ball and have our health checked out regularly, including screenings for these diseases! The Dana Farber Institute of Boston actually has an active case study running on our family due to so many siblings being affected with the cancer and we have all already been in contact and enrolled in the study… I will be giving blood and a DNA sample in 2 weeks to find out if there is a common gene.
Anyhow - I am slowly getting myself back to work this week and will be back in full swing on Monday of next week. I want to extend a huge thank you to all of you out there who sent well wishes and prayers for out family during this time. There are very few of you that I have actually met with in person… but I received more than 250 emails from readers of this blog, all of you sending various words of encouragement, prayers, hopes and wisdom. I don’t know how to thank you enough… but will find a way.
Thank you all -
Mark
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I don’t know if you can be prepared for the passing of a loved one. Four years ago my best friend had a stroke. She was 33. Ten days later she was gone. I don’t think the pain would have been any less had we known she was going to pass. In the end it just hurts no matter what.
My heart goes out to you and your family.
Rochelle