What are we looking at here?

There is so much happening with my dad's health these days that it makes my head spin.  He went to see his oncologist yesterday and had a positive visit.  People there said he was looking and acting better than he was before he left for the Southern Comfort Tour.  Some bloodwork showed that the new chemo is probably kicking back the tumors in his spine.  He has gained some weight back. But... The weight gain may be mostly fluid retention in his belly and legs (no good), the tumors in his spine cause him pain but aren't probably going to kill him (that will probably be the brain stuff that is going untreated).  So having a good visit is pretty relative.  He was having a hard time keeping anything down yesterday.  We think it may be from the fluid around his belly and not because of the pressure on his brain.  Either way he really needs calories.

He looks so different.  His voice though... his voice is still the same.  And his mind is still his.  It makes me want to SCREAM!  I have this image in my mind of him being pulled away from us.  All I want to do is dig my heels in and pull back.  But that just isn't how it goes.  So in my mind I scream and hold on to him, and on the outside I make dinner and raise my beautiful babies, and sit on the bed and visit with my dad, and call my husband, and talk with my mom.  I can't cry yet.  I feel it coming on and I have to push it down.  There will be so much time for crying later.  When we move from still having my dad to not.  When memories we share with him will become all we have.  When time will keep moving and taking me farther from when I was with him.

So dramatic. So true.

The other day Josephine was wearing an outfit with a rocket ship on it and I pointed this out to Owen.  He said, "We're on the Saturn 5!".  I asked him if we were going to the moon and he replied, "Sometime.  We'll go out to dinner and then go on the Saturn 5 to the moon."