Trip to Ohio

And I wonder why I am so fucked up.

My Dad hoards.  It seems to be very much like an addiction.

Well, all I know is he goes to two Goodwill stores everyday and buys shit.  Like old tupperware containers, knives, lamps, radios, tape recorders, boxes, serving trays, sewing machines, etc.  On and on the list goes.  My dad's house is filled up with this shit.  It's fucking crazy.

My aunt and he kind of had it out while he was there.  I kinda watched.  It sucked.

The real problem started when in early December a valve failed in the lavatory upstairs at his house in northern Ohio.  He was down at his house on the Ohio River and water soaked the upstairs unabated.  It soaked the upstairs until the drywall ceiling became water logged.  The ceiling fell in and the massive amount of stuff, lamps, papers, containers (most of which were empty), tools, furniture, etc. got completely soaked.  The water actually went through to the basement where it collected until he got home and found about a foot of water.

December 8th 2011

Ok, so I have just come through three and a half horrible months.  Starting December 8th of 2011, 11 days after my last post, my girlfriend and I discovered her cancer had been growing in her for the last 5 months.  Actually it was probably growing longer than that.

In July, after a very severe sneeze, she experience a horrible pain in the fourth rib down on her right side.  This had happened to her before so she didn't think to much about it other than she started going seeing a massage therapist.  The therapist relieved some of the pain but in one session when he got a little to aggressive and ended up causing her more pain.  He then referred her to a chiropractor that does "craniosacral therapy."  (whatever that is)  She went to the chiropractor and he was able to relieve her pain quite a bit.

During this period her pain was so great that she could only sit for 15 to 20 minutes at a time.  She either had to be standing up or lying down.  When she would lie down she had to lie down in a particular way otherwise the pain would be really bad.  By October the chiropractor had almost eliminated the pain.  She was hiking and walking as if there was nothing wrong all the way up to December 8th.  In fact, the weekend after December 8th she was shoveling snow.

On December 8th she got a call about an x-ray that turned up positive for "something" in her lungs.  That following Monday she had a CAT scan which showed not only "nodules" in her lungs but some abnormalities with her ribs.  From this they ordered an MRI, Bone Scan, Biopsy and a PET Scan.  That Friday 8 days after the initial contact we were at the hospital getting the biopsy which ultimately determined that is was in fact cancer.  I had scheduled a trip back to Ohio for Christmas.  I cut the trip short to come back to go to the oncologist with her on December 28th.

The trip to Ohio turned out to be quite terrifying.  This was truly shaping up to be one of the worst Christmases I have ever lived through.