Phone call
Well, it was a lovely day. :-/
Mom just called. Apparently last night in surgery doctors found a massive tumor in my grandpa's colon, and she said it had spread into other organs -- they removed part of the colon, the duodenom, some of the pancreas, and the gallbladder. And they still didn't get it all. He has to recover from the surgery, and see an oncologist, but after he heals, in three to four weeks, they're thinking about beginning chemo, I think. The only history of cancer he had before was melanoma, which they removed several years ago. This is obviously much more serious.
I'm not sure what to think. I've never been too close to my grandfather. We saw my grandparents every week at church for eleven years, and through middle school I went over to their house every day after school. Grandpa is very emotionally reserved around family; around strangers, though, he's extraordinarily generous. He's gone to mission trips in Africa three or four times, yet won't visit us at home. He believes very firmly that the Church of Christ is THE way to go and that even other Protestant Christian denominations are unequivacably wrong and thus damned, and all last year tried to harangue me into going to the Salem-Keizer Church of Christ, even though I couldn't care less for the church's doctrine. My idea of Christianity is simple: all you need is baptism and a belief that Jesus is the son of God. I don't care about having instruments in church (for some reason, that's verboten in the CoC) and I'm certainly willing for women to have positions of leadership (though that may just be my particular church, not the whole denomination, I don't know enough to say). Grandpa is really into the CoC, though. So because of that, we don't really talk much.... He's much more into actions than words, like, he'll bring over loaves of banana bread he made, just because, but would never be able to say "I love you." So when Mom called, I was sad and troubled, but not terribly shaken, and I kind of feel bad about that. But that may have been more because I just took my grandparents for granted and never really thought they weren't invincible. They're generally pretty healthy, and so it seems like this has just come out of nowhere. Maybe it hasn't sunken in yet, or what, I don't know.
I'm really not sure what to do, beyond getting a card tomorrow and sending it to him at the hospital. I might go home this weekend and visit. And I guess I'll try praying again... sometimes I get on prayer 'kicks,' and do it faithfully every night for a long time, and then I have a few tiring nights in a row and fall back out of the habit. I'll have to get back into that, especially since Grandpa believes so firmly in God. And one thing's for sure, Grandpa is definitely stubborn.
I guess I'll just let this post be on its own; can't really think of what else to put with it.
Mom just called. Apparently last night in surgery doctors found a massive tumor in my grandpa's colon, and she said it had spread into other organs -- they removed part of the colon, the duodenom, some of the pancreas, and the gallbladder. And they still didn't get it all. He has to recover from the surgery, and see an oncologist, but after he heals, in three to four weeks, they're thinking about beginning chemo, I think. The only history of cancer he had before was melanoma, which they removed several years ago. This is obviously much more serious.
I'm not sure what to think. I've never been too close to my grandfather. We saw my grandparents every week at church for eleven years, and through middle school I went over to their house every day after school. Grandpa is very emotionally reserved around family; around strangers, though, he's extraordinarily generous. He's gone to mission trips in Africa three or four times, yet won't visit us at home. He believes very firmly that the Church of Christ is THE way to go and that even other Protestant Christian denominations are unequivacably wrong and thus damned, and all last year tried to harangue me into going to the Salem-Keizer Church of Christ, even though I couldn't care less for the church's doctrine. My idea of Christianity is simple: all you need is baptism and a belief that Jesus is the son of God. I don't care about having instruments in church (for some reason, that's verboten in the CoC) and I'm certainly willing for women to have positions of leadership (though that may just be my particular church, not the whole denomination, I don't know enough to say). Grandpa is really into the CoC, though. So because of that, we don't really talk much.... He's much more into actions than words, like, he'll bring over loaves of banana bread he made, just because, but would never be able to say "I love you." So when Mom called, I was sad and troubled, but not terribly shaken, and I kind of feel bad about that. But that may have been more because I just took my grandparents for granted and never really thought they weren't invincible. They're generally pretty healthy, and so it seems like this has just come out of nowhere. Maybe it hasn't sunken in yet, or what, I don't know.
I'm really not sure what to do, beyond getting a card tomorrow and sending it to him at the hospital. I might go home this weekend and visit. And I guess I'll try praying again... sometimes I get on prayer 'kicks,' and do it faithfully every night for a long time, and then I have a few tiring nights in a row and fall back out of the habit. I'll have to get back into that, especially since Grandpa believes so firmly in God. And one thing's for sure, Grandpa is definitely stubborn.
I guess I'll just let this post be on its own; can't really think of what else to put with it.