One last blog post for the night...
This one's for those who have following me since before the summer. And for my new followers, I'll give a quick recap...
Last spring, my dad was diagnosed with a sarcoma cancer tumor beneath his right armpit. He had surgery to remove the tumor. Then they moved some muscle from his back to fill in the hole left from removing the tumor. He was in the hospital for 4 days, including the day of the surgery.
I drove out to Memphis, Tennessee from Las Vegas, Nevada in 2 days to be with him and my mom during his surgery and hospital stay. My dad's sister (my aunt) and her husband (my uncle) were there for the first couple of days too. After he was released from the hospital, I drove down to West Point, Mississippi to help out with stuff around the house. Basically, I was chauffeur, gopher, calmer downer (my mom gets bent out of shape when things don't go her way when she's stressed out), lawn waterer, and a variety of other things while I was there. I went with them when my dad had to go back to Memphis for follow up appointments. I was also working remotely since I didn't have much vacation time banked (my bosses were extremely accommodating... I'm very grateful to them for allowing me to work remotely).
In all I stayed 3 weeks, then took 5 days for a relatively leisurely trip back. I saw some sights: Hot Springs National Park, the Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere, the Leaning Water Tower of Britton, Texas, Cadillac Ranch (@_kettle, I saw that you stopped there on your US Tour), Standing on a Corner park in Winslow, Arizona (see my profile photo), Grand Canyon National Park, and some US Route 66 nostalgia in Williams, Arizona, Seligman, Arizona and points beyond Seligman until I hit Kingman, Arizona.
So that's the short version; you can read more about all of that in my previous blogs.
My dad's surgery sites healed well. After they healed up, his doctors had him do some physical therapy to break up some of the scar tissue. The tumor was near some nerves and the artery that travel down his arm to his hand. So they got most of the sarcoma out during surgery, but not all of it. Fortunately for him, sarcoma cancers don't respond to chemotherapy so he didn't have to go through that, but he did have to go through 6 weeks of extreme radiation treatments: 5 days a week for 6 weeks. He finished up those treatments last week.
He's doing great, though he has at least two months of recovery from the radiation treatments.
I'll be sure to give you all another update when I hear more.
Thank you to everyone who gave their support when all of this was happening back in June and July. I love you all.
Stay Tuned...
DeadGuitarist
