On the 25th of August, I woke up at about 7 in the morning to multiple missed calls from my dad's number and a text message from my brother saying I should contact dad because he's trying to reach me. I was just about to listen to the voicemails he'd left when his number showed up on the screen. It was my stepmother, who was driving my dad home from the hospital, while he vomited in the background. She was calling to let me know that dad had been very sick for a couple of weeks (vomiting, dizziness, wobbly legs) with what the doctors first thought was a double ear infection but have just discovered was a tumour on his cerebellum. Scans also showed a lesion on his colon, which they weren't sure was related, but yes the tumour is cancerous and no we don't know what's going to happen.
Tears started pouring as soon as I hung up, and didn't stop for 2 hours. It was a work day, so Joost was making breakfast and came to ask what I wanted to eat but changed his question to "Is everything all right?" No. Everything was not all right, and I couldn't get the words past the lump in my throat to explain why, but he held me while I cried my eyes out and that was nice.
I continued getting ready for work, all while still sobbing (because the 2 hours weren't up yet): Somehow managed to get dressed, wash my face, and eat my muesli through tears before Joost, sitting across from me, said, "You don't have to listen to me or anything... but you don't really look like you're in shape to go to work right now." And yeah, okay, he was right: My eyes were swollen and red, and it felt like the tears would never stop (45-minute mark now).
They eventually did though, and I'm glad I had that voice to listen to and got to sit in my puddle of tears that day as I tried to figure out all the weird feelings I was failing to juggle. I went out, but didn't really tell people about it, because how do you explain that you're leaving the party early because you have to catch a last minute flight to spend time with your father who suddenly has cancer?
So that day was pretty shitty, and there were still so many uncertainties about everything at that point. Nobody knew what the next steps were or how bad the cancer was or what it meant, and we were scared. My dad describes this stage as the "AHHH I'M GOING TO DIE" phase, when he'd just been told he has cancer and was freaking out. Now he's in the "Nah, I'm gonna die of old age, not cancer; I've decided" phase, which is a lot better. :)
My dad had surgery to remove the tumour on his brain exactly one week after the call, and the doctors confirmed that the lesion on his colon was also cancerous. They were able to remove all of the visible tumour, but were pretty surprised to discover that it was metastasis (I know all the cancer lingo now!) -- which means the small growth on his colon (of which he wasn't experiencing any symptoms) was actually the original cancer that had spread to the brain. That's weird in cancer world because colon cancer is usually diagnosed after first showing signs of problems with the original first, not the secondary one.
One day later, I was on a 32-hour journey from Amsterdam to New Zealand (actually the quickest route), where I stayed for four weeks. Just enough time to see him recover from the brain operation, catch and get better from a painful chest infection, as well as go into and come out of surgery on his colon (also a successful extraction, by the way). But because he does have stage four cancer that spread from his colon all the way to his brain, it's likely he has cancer cells throughout his body that haven't grown enough to show up on scans, so he does have to undergo chemotherapy (one every three weeks: he's now done seven doses, and there hasn't been any signs of anymore strange growths, so his last one should be in 11 days!) and then radiotherapy for his brain.
So you know, it was horrible for a while, but things are looking up, and this year is just going to be all about good things. :)
Everything will be all right.
