I wanted to share with you my story of my step dad that has passed away to cancer.  Five years ago in May my mom married Bill.  They were happy together in fact the happiest I have ever seen my mom in years.  In August Bill had a swollen gland in his neck so he went to the hospital.  For a couple of months the doctors told him it was allergies and put him on Zertec and antibiotics.  Sept 8, 2006, Bill got up during the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and he collapsed on the floor.  Blacked out and was unresponsive.  My mom had called 911 and the ambulance was on their way when she had called me.  They did get him to start breathing again on the way to the hospital.  Several hours later the transfered him to another hospital and mom and I were on our way there too.

Once there, they did a scope to look at his throat and found a cyst wrapped around his main artery and that is what caused him to black out and quit breathing.  After further tests we found out it was cancer, Yes cancer not allergies.

That’s when the battle began.  We stayed at a house that is just a block away from the hospital and the Cancer treatment center.  While Bill was in the hospital trying to get better we spent endless hours by his side (the treatments he was receiving and the lack of blood to the brain would make him hallucinate).  Four weeks after he was diagnosed with cancer, he woke up one morning and asked me if I thought he was going to die and I told him no.  That night mom and I went home to get clothes and so I could spend sometime with my family and we got a phone call that we needed to come back. Bill had taken a turn for the worst.

We drove back that night and he did make it three more nights before he passed away.  Cancer is a horrible disease to watch someone die because of it makes it even harder.  To see a strong man weak and needing help getting up, going to the bathroom, and not being able to eat because the radiation burnt his throat was very hard and then to find out that the treatments didn’t help was frustrating.  With cancer I think a person has every feeling possible at some point and time of treatment.

I pray for all people going through cancer, their family, and their cartakers every day.  It takes alot of courage and strength to get through such a horrible disease.