Still, Nobody Tells Me Anything

I created this blog a few years ago to keep my family up on the happenings in my growing household. I had recently married, and we were having kids, and since my family were still living up in the North, it made sense.
But I didn't know what to call it.
Then I heard the news about my Grandmother kicking her second husband out, and *ding* there it was. The rest was history.
There have been other times that have come up since then giving me the opportunity to grouse about my lack of news from my Northern relatives. Usually it's about people getting married, having babies, or the health of my Grandmother. I deal with it pretty well, i think.

I just heard in an email from my friend that my Dad has cancer.

Okay, that's a little dramatic. He has a "melanoma" on his skin, his forehead I think, and he's seeking treatment for it this week.

Here's the email from my friend:

um, you did know this, right?

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 9:26 AM,
Jeremy K <myfriend'semail @
gmail.com>
wrote:
> Dude, sorry to hear about your dad. I hope everything goes well with
> the surgeon. Melanoma is serious business ... hope they get the sucker
> out before it gets too deep. We'll definitely keep him in our
> thoughts.
>
> Jeremy

When I first read it, i actually thought he was talking about his father. My heart dropped, my stomach lurched, i pictured myself on a flight to meet him in CT soon... all kinds of unhappy images. I sent him a quick reply back, asking for details and clarification.

I couldn't wait for a response and just called him on his cell phone, something I rarely do. Turns out he heard from his Mom that she saw my Dad over the weekend and he has a melanoma on his forehead and he's going to see a surgeon for it.

("Uh, Hello, Brain? Yes, this is Chest. Mm-hmm, it seems that we have lost contact with Head. Yep, the Jaw has gone slack and has dropped against our upper sternum area. No, no damage to report, but I can't contact Head to reel it back in. Right, totally unresponsive.")

My Dad? Holy crap. It crossed my mind that this was a joke of some kind, but that quickly got squashed because that's not really funny. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Yeah, it's probably not as serious as he's making it out to be.

I walked out of my office and called my Mom on the phone. I can't explain why I didn't just call my Dad. In fact, I still haven't. I think I'm too nervous. So I get her on the phone and immediately launch into, "So what's this I hear about Dad and Cancer?" She says it's nothing big, no need to worry. He's going to see a surgeon on Friday to take care of it. "Okay. All right," I ask, "So, he just goes in and he snips off the bad part and he's all set?" "Well," she says, "It's a little more than that."

Aw jeez.