Life on the frozen tundra of South Dakota Life on the frozen tundra of South Dakota

The Story Of Dad's Fight With Cancer

The Story Of Dad's Fight With Cancer

Project Completed 02/06/2012

Project Completed 02/06/2012

This may be the most interesting project I have built to date. Not because of any degree of technical difficulty of the construction or an unusual amount of ornate style; in all reality, this is one of the simpler projects I have built. The reason this project captures attention is because of what it represents: my father.

My father passed away on February 6th, 2012 from pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed in November and the doctor estimated he had six to eight months remaining. A mere three months later, he was gone. He and I were close. Most of who I am (the good parts anyway) are due to him and his influence on my life. Dad was the one who first taught me basic woodworking. He never considered himself a woodworker, but was a very capable handyman. He loved watching Norm Abram on television, and he loved to see the projects I would create.

Back at the family farm in Fairfax, SD, along the fence line separating the driveway from one of the fields was an old black walnut tree. For many, many years this tree had provided entertainment for all of the children on the farm. There had been a swing hung from one of the limbs. As a child, my father would climb and swing on this tree. I remember playing on this tree as a child too. At the base was a low spot in the ground which would collect water after a rain, and made the greatest mud puddles ever, much to the chagrin of my mother.

The exact year I don't recall but probably around 2006, Dad and my uncle Garry were out at the farm. The walnut tree had died and was threatening to fall over. The two brothers decided it was time to cut the tree down before it damaged something when it fell.

Note that this isn't the actual tree that was cut down. This was a maple tree from my back yard we cut down in October of 2002. However it is a picture I have of my dad with a chainsaw, so I thought it would be appropriate to include it here.

Dad cutting down my maple tree in October, 2002.

After cutting down the tree, my father called a local sawyer to plank out the trunk, then stack and sticker it in the garage where it could air dry. Dad then called me and told me about the wood he had waiting for me. He thought I could make something interesting out of most of it, but had one specific request for a portion: he wanted me to build him an urn for his cremated remains.

At the time, I didn't think much about the request. I think I replied with a, "Yeah, sure. I can do that someday." I knew the rough lumber would take some time to dry and besides, my dad was in great health.

Fast forward to fall of 2011. Over the previous few months, dad hadn't been feeling very good. His stomach was frequently upset, but more troubling was his lack of energy. Since his retirement in 2002 he had been very active volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, working at least three days a week either building houses or working at the Re-Store selling reclaimed home repair supplies. Where once he could work all day, now it seemed that three or four hours were all he could muster on a good day. He had been seeing the doctor to try and figure out what was going on. The doctor agreed that there must be something wrong other than just "getting old." Every test he ran seemed to come back negative. Finally in late October, after having a very difficult time traveling to Colorado for my cousin's wedding, the doctor noticed something on a test and set up an appointment with an oncologist in early November.

The oncologist did a CT scan and found a suspicious mass on dad's pancreas and liver. A subsequent biopsy produced the fatal diagnosis: stage four pancreatic cancer which had spread to the liver. It was inoperable and untreatable. As already mentioned, at this point in time the doctor predicted that the cancer would claim my dad's life in six to eight months. Chemotherapy was scheduled and gave some hope to slow the cancer's growth and hopefully extend the number of months remaining by a short extent, but it could only hope to delay the inevitable.

Among the many other things that went through my mind at this time, was my promise to build a box for dad's ashes. Now that I had a rough window of time in which I needed to have this project completed, I decided I couldn't delay much longer in starting to work on this project.

My cousin Joel happened to be out at the farm hunting, so I had him throw a few boards in the back of his Suburban when he came back to town. I was at work, so he dropped them off in my driveway. I moved them to the basement where they sat blocking the hallway for a few days.

I spent the Saturday after Thanksgiving milling the rough sawn planks into useable, dimensioned lumber. This had the dual benefit of allowing me to see how much wood I had available, along with allowing the basement hallway to be used without climbing over lumber.

The Christmas season was upon us and along with it the typical busy schedules. I didn't do anything with the lumber. I figured I'd get through the holidays and then I'd have about six months available in which I could worry about getting the urn built.

One thing I did accomplish during this time was to visit the funeral home and talk to them about the project. I needed to know the size of the ashes so that I knew how big I should make the urn. The funeral director gave me a cardboard box in which they place the bags of ashes after a person is cremated and instructed me that if I built the urn to fit the cardboard box then it would be sized correctly.

Often times I take my wife to Ohio to see her family over Christmas. Given the circumstances, we decided to stay in town this Christmas and not leave for Ohio until the next day. Dad had a good weekend, and felt pretty decent. We spent Friday night, and both Saturday and Sunday as a family. That weekend with Dad turned into one of the most memorable times of my life, and I am so grateful that it worked out the way it did.

My wife, my son and I went to Ohio for a week. The day we were returning, I got word that my dad had been placed in the hospital for an infection in his legs. We got back into town and I went to see him. The contrast from the previous week was alarming. I decided now that the holidays are over, I'd better get to work on the urn sooner rather than later.

A friend was over one night and we were in the shop talking. I mentioned the urn project and how I needed to get rolling. He asked me what I had in mind for plans, and I admitted that I really didn't have any firm ideas on how to build this thing. I stated that I would probably make something that looked like a miniature casket. I grabbed an old receipt that was lying around and flipped it over to the blank side. In a matter of about two minutes, I rough sketched a profile and a few notes. Those turned into the only plans I had. The rest came about naturally as I progressed and thought about the urn in my spare time.

I began the process of building. Being a father myself, I don't have hours upon hours to spend in the shop. Most of my available time was the 45 or so minutes that my son would spend getting ready for bed each night. I would sneak down to the shop and make some noise, occasionally taking a brief moment to make sure my son was on track with his bedtime preparations.

My father came home from the hospital for a little more than a week. On the day he was scheduled for his last chemo treatment of the first round, he was unable to walk to the car. The cancer had taken the feeling from his legs. A neighbor helped him get into the car and my mother drove him to the doctor. After looking at dad, the doctor canceled the chemo appointment and placed him back into the hospital. In the hospital another CT scan was done to gauge whether or not the chemotherapy was slowing the growth. Unfortunately it was discovered that while the cancer on the pancreas was relatively unchanged, the cancer on the liver had gotten much larger. The chemo treatments were not proving to be effective.

It was at this point that my father, along with his doctors and our family, came to the decision to discontinue any further treatments for the cancer. What had been tried had not been successful. Becoming more aggressive may have extended his life by a few months, but would have made those months miserable.

Calling in to question the "care" portion of their name, Medicare announced that my father had to be out of the hospital by the end of the day. Their reasoning was because my dad was forgoing any further treatment for his cancer, his only reason for being in the hospital was for lodging and they don't pay for lodging. This put us into a bit of a bind as dad was still unable to walk and because of this my mom wouldn't be able to take care of him at home.

Thinking that a nursing home would be the logical place to take care of dad, we called around and found out only three facilities currently had an opening. Two of them were on the "absolutely not" list due to their reputation. The third was one of the homes that dad thought would be acceptable, so we set up an appointment for me, my mom and my brother to meet at the nursing home and talk to the case worker.

When we arrived, we were delighted to find that the case worker was Karen, an old family friend. She was the mother of one of my brother's close friends from high school. We hadn't seen her in about 20 years. She spoke with us for about an hour and gave us a tour of the facility.

Finally, Karen told us that while we were welcome to move my dad into their facility, she didn't think he would be very happy there. She then asked if we had considered a hospice facility. We told her that we had briefly discussed it with the hospital case worker, but from what we were told it didn't sound like dad would yet be a candidate for hospice.

In her opinion, Karen thought dad would qualify for hospice and set about making phone calls on our behalf. We sat there and watched her go to town. When it was all said and done, Karen had a hospice room reserved for my dad at the Dougherty Hospice House. Dougherty appealed to us, but the final decision was dad's. We returned to the hospital where dad was waiting and told him about the hospice room. He agreed that would be his best option, so at the end of that day we packed him up and moved him.

When we arrived at the Dougherty Hospice House, we were surprised to find that dad was given the exact same room where his mother had stayed two years earlier. In a weird sort of way, this was comforting to us. We were familiar with this room. It felt like "home". Once we had dad situated in his room it felt like a huge burden had been lifted off of us.

At the time we moved dad to hospice, we were still expecting dad to have four or more months left with us. Nevertheless, I continued to work on the box. I figured that I would rather have it done early than procrastinate and risk not finishing in time.

I wrapped up the construction of the box and started to apply the finish. As usual, the finishing process was more time intensive than actually building the project. I think I knocked out the construction in less than two weeks. Applying the finish took 16 days.

Dad's 15th day in hospice was a Thursday. After I got home from work we went and bought some sandwiches, then went over to Dougherty to have supper with dad. Overall he seemed to be doing pretty well, perhaps even rallying a bit. He still couldn't walk and now his right arm was losing functionality. But he was in good spirits and could think clearly. We had a good visit until he tired out, so we said goodnight and went home.

On Friday, my mom called and informed me that dad had been throwing up all day. We weren't sure if it was a bug he picked up, or if the cancer was starting to affect his stomach. In any event, mom told me not to come and visit that evening as dad didn't feel like having company.

On Saturday morning, I stopped by to visit during breakfast time. Dad was awake and eating breakfast, but the first thing I noticed was that he hadn't moved to sit on the edge of the bed as he normally did when he ate. I noticed that he had a bandage on his head and his right hand. The nurse informed me that sometime during the night dad had tried to get out of bed and walk and had fallen. During the fall he cut his hand open and hit his head. In talking with dad, he didn't remember that any of this had happened. However his eyes didn't look right, like his pupils wouldn't dilate correctly. Also he was having difficulty getting words out and was mixing up his sentences. I am strongly suspecting that either he received a concussion during the fall, or perhaps he had a small stroke during the night. Whatever happened, the difference from the previous 36 hours was noticeable.

Sunday was the Superbowl. For lack of wanting to go anywhere else, our family was going to get together at my house to watch the game and eat some pizza. My son and I ran up to see dad in the afternoon before I had to get food ready for the game.

When we walked in the room, we were taken aback. For about 10 seconds or so I thought dad had passed away. He was lying in bed motionless with his mouth wide open, staring blankly into space. The scene was so shocking that Tyler left the room and sat outside the door somewhat traumatized. Dad finally moved and I couldn't believe the decline that happened in a single day. We visited for about a half an hour, which is to say that I talked to him during this time as dad was unable to put many words together.

My mother arrived as I was leaving and she planned to stay with my dad for a while until it was time to come over to my house for supper. I ran home and was doing some final cleaning/preparing when the phone rang. It was my mom, and she was saying my dad was insisting that everyone come over to his room to watch the game.

I have to be honest, my initial reaction was, "Are you crazy? The last thing dad needs is a room full of people." There was no arguing with my mom, so we reluctantly agreed and started preparing to haul the food over to dad's room at Dougherty.

When I arrived with the food, dad was sitting up in bed and was much more lucid than he had been just an hour before. He didn't have the clarity that he did just a few days prior, but he was better. We turned on the game in both rooms (dad's suite had a sitting room outside of his bedroom) and began to enjoy supper. The regular meal tray arrived from the cafeteria, but dad shoved it aside and wanted to join us with what we were eating.

Dad had a huge meal, in comparison to what he had been eating the last few weeks. He had a slice of pizza, a giant piece of KFC chicken, some mashed potatoes and gravy, a biscuit and a brownie. We watched the game. I'm not sure how well dad could follow what was happening on TV. I know I didn't really watch the game too close myself, and spent most of my time sitting next to dad helping him eat and talking to him.

At half time dad announce that he was very tired and he wanted everyone to leave so he could sleep. We quickly packed up and said goodnight to dad. Everyone went their separate ways that evening and we went home to watch the last few minutes of the game.

The next morning of Monday, February 6th, I woke up and spent a few minutes before I left for work putting the last coat of polyurethane on the urn.

At the same time two miles away, dad woke up and complained of pain. Amazingly enough this was the first time during his whole sickness that he had hurt bad enough to complain. This had been a major concern of mine, and the topic of many, many prayers. I had seen other friends die of cancer and at the end their pain was very intense, coupled with the fact that the disease was preventing their body from absorbing any of the pain medication. Seeing my dad in agony was a great fear of mine.

At this first complaint of pain, the nurses gave dad a shot of morphine. He went to sleep and slept the remainder of the day, skipping all of his meals. When I got off work Amy and I had planned to go see dad. My mother called and told me not to bother coming out as dad was just sleeping and wasn't much company. A minute later my phone rang again and Amy told me that Tyler had come home early from school that morning and had been throwing up all day.

Seeing as my choices were sleeping dad or throwing up son, I decided sleeping dad was less contagious and probably more appetizing. So I rode my bicycle from work over to the Dougherty Hospice House to spend some time with dad.

I arrived at about 5:15. When I walked in the room my mother was crying. Apparently just a couple minutes before I got there the nurse had told my mom that dad had reached "the beginning of the end." Obviously she couldn't tell us how long dad had left, but she estimated one to three days. This news hadn't come as a surprise. Dad's breathing had taken on the notorious "death rattle" and was audible from outside the room.

Mom and I sat and talked while dad slept. My brother arrived a few minutes later. At 6:00, Amy called and informed me that Tyler was sick enough to warrant taking him to the emergency room. Feeling conflicted between caring for my son and spending the few remaining hours with my dad, I decided my son's needs were more pressing. Dad could last days in this state and there really wasn't anything I could do. I left my brother to care for my mom and raced home on my bicycle as fast as I could.

Tyler was showing all the signs of appendicitis and had been throwing up non-stop since about 1 PM that afternoon. We took him to the clinic where they ran a bunch of tests. Thankfully it turned out to be a particularly nasty stomach bug which was greatly relieved by anti-nausea medicine and passed within a couple of days.

I dropped Tyler and Amy off at home, ran to the pharmacy to fill the prescription, stopped at the grocery store to buy Jell-O (the only thing we wanted to risk feeding Tyler), then buzzed back home before heading back to Dougherty.

When I arrived back at the hospice house around 9 PM my mother and brother were still there, joined by my aunt and uncle along with their two kids. As the evening grew later dad was showing no changes and everyone started to head home. My mother had decided to spend the night. I helped her get ready and after offering to stay with her, was told to go home and get some sleep. I said goodbye and left Dougherty at 10:35 PM.

The evening had been very tiring and I was preparing for bed. At 11:10 the phone rang. As soon as I saw the caller ID I knew that it was my mom and what she was going to say. My father had passed away.

I don't remember the exact words my mom said on the phone. I just remember that I told her I'd be right there, and she asked me to call my brother and my uncle. I gave my brother a call and informed him, then called my uncle but got his voice mail. I left a message, then hopped in the car and headed back to Dougherty.

For the next four hours my brother, my mother and I sat in the room with dad until the funeral home came to haul away his body. There were forms we had to fill out and formalities we had to go through. We also had to pack up all of dad's belongings and take them home.

The next six days were a whirlwind. We made all of the funeral arrangements. The sickness that my son had suffered on Monday night attacked my wife on Tuesday night, hit me on Wednesday and my brother on Saturday. Family came in to town late in the week.

On Friday we had the family visitation. By request, I asked the funeral home to give me the ashes. My brother and I placed dad's cremains inside the urn, and we placed the urn on the table along with some pictures and memorabilia.

The church had already been booked for a wedding on Saturday, so we didn't have the funeral until Sunday afternoon. It was a very nice service, and at dad's request we had a full Thanksgiving-style dinner with all of the trimmings.

After the meal when all the guests had left we packed everything up and returned home. I took the following day off from work, but returned on Tuesday in an attempt to resume a "normal" life. To be honest, at the time of this writing I've yet to have had a "normal" day knowing that dad is no longer just a phone call away.

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This page last updated on 06/28/2018