Sad Weekend for our family

roaddr23

March 23rd would have been my Dad's 73rd birthday. He was diagnosed with stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer on Feb 19th, 2012. I spent last March 23rd with him in the Emergency Room. The nurses were great and came in and sang Happy Birthday to him. One of them was from Scotland and when she was done singing she started to tell him what a great number 23 is. When she said that we both looked at each other and laughed and then she said Let me tell you about 23 ...she said My birthday is Nov 23rd to which I replied so is mine, then she said My son's birthday is Aug 23 to which I said So is my husband's and my niece's, she said The last place I lived was # 23 something street...and my dog was born on Feb 23...She says 23 is my lucky # and I said it's ours too and then told her my daughter was born on July 23, which is also my wedding anniversary and my son was born on June 23rd and the Quarterhorse I used to have was born on April  23rd...She just burst out laughing and said I can't compete with you guys...I would see her a lot after that in the halls when I had Dad down at the hospital for different tests...She would always laugh and say " Hey 23 how is everything going? She was a really great person and excellent nurse too and even though Dad spent the day in the ER on his birthday I think he had a better birthday then he anticipated. I can't believe that was a year ago already...I really miss him a lot. But it did cheer me up some this weekend thinking about the kindness and laughter the nurses brought to him that during such a rough time in his life...

KJones1969

I feel your pain

My husband was diagnosed with Stage IV Renal Cell Carcinoma that had spread to his lungs on Febuary 18, 2012. I had no idea when he had some surgery on his head on Febuary 28th of this year to remove a lesion that had spread to his scalp that it would be our last full month together. He left me on March 8th of this year. I love him now more than ever and always thought he would be with me for a long time but there were other plans for him.

Everyone fight the fight and spend as much time as you can with the ones you love because none of are promised the next breath.

roaddr23

KJones1969 said:

I feel your pain

My husband was diagnosed with Stage IV Renal Cell Carcinoma that had spread to his lungs on Febuary 18, 2012. I had no idea when he had some surgery on his head on Febuary 28th of this year to remove a lesion that had spread to his scalp that it would be our last full month together. He left me on March 8th of this year. I love him now more than ever and always thought he would be with me for a long time but there were other plans for him.

Everyone fight the fight and spend as much time as you can with the ones you love because none of are promised the next breath.

You are so right

My heart goes out to you...it is really hard but I try to think of the fun times and there were so many more of them than sad ones. My younger brother died of sudden cardiac arrest Jan 5, 2011. He was 56. Ayear later Dad was diagnosed and died May 8, 2012, seven weeks later on July 1 my Mom died and on Sept 3 my incredible Mother In Law died..Then I get diagnosed for the second time with Kidney Cancer and incredibly surgery again and lots of close monitoring but I am cancer free...I truly believe there is a reason for everything. When our parents died my sister and I had to take the Rottie back to the Humane Society because neither of us could keep her..She was the sweetest, most playful dog ever and she loved her Mommy and Daddy...as we were driving down there we said " God, we have had a really bad few years.Could you please give us a little bit of time to recover and then at the same time I swear we both said "but if you have something else for us to get through it will be hard but we can make it through it if you need us to."  2 weeks after we dropped Butter of the Pres of the Humane Society called in tears...Butter got really sick suddenly, they took her to the Vet and she was full of cancer and they had to put her down...We know she wanted to be with her Mom and Dad...But he truly did give us a miracle with my RCC and I will be forever thankful and will be here as much as I can to support all the wonderful folks on this board..I was really smacked with reality too...I wanted to share support and my Dad's story with the Pancreatic Cancer board and reality hit when I saw there isn't one...

My "Dad" was actually my stepdad for 40+ years and on July 15, 2011 he legally adopted my sister and I. She was 52 and I was 60. The Judge was so excited he came down off the bench to take pictures of all of us. We had no idea Dad was sick and would be gone so soon....

I wish your heart the healing I know it needs.

Texas_wedge

roaddr23 said:

You are so right

My heart goes out to you...it is really hard but I try to think of the fun times and there were so many more of them than sad ones. My younger brother died of sudden cardiac arrest Jan 5, 2011. He was 56. Ayear later Dad was diagnosed and died May 8, 2012, seven weeks later on July 1 my Mom died and on Sept 3 my incredible Mother In Law died..Then I get diagnosed for the second time with Kidney Cancer and incredibly surgery again and lots of close monitoring but I am cancer free...I truly believe there is a reason for everything. When our parents died my sister and I had to take the Rottie back to the Humane Society because neither of us could keep her..She was the sweetest, most playful dog ever and she loved her Mommy and Daddy...as we were driving down there we said " God, we have had a really bad few years.Could you please give us a little bit of time to recover and then at the same time I swear we both said "but if you have something else for us to get through it will be hard but we can make it through it if you need us to."  2 weeks after we dropped Butter of the Pres of the Humane Society called in tears...Butter got really sick suddenly, they took her to the Vet and she was full of cancer and they had to put her down...We know she wanted to be with her Mom and Dad...But he truly did give us a miracle with my RCC and I will be forever thankful and will be here as much as I can to support all the wonderful folks on this board..I was really smacked with reality too...I wanted to share support and my Dad's story with the Pancreatic Cancer board and reality hit when I saw there isn't one...

My "Dad" was actually my stepdad for 40+ years and on July 15, 2011 he legally adopted my sister and I. She was 52 and I was 60. The Judge was so excited he came down off the bench to take pictures of all of us. We had no idea Dad was sick and would be gone so soon....

I wish your heart the healing I know it needs.

You are so right

Thank you for sharing another very moving posting.  You're doing a fine job in humanising our very harrowing scenarios. It obviously comes naturally to you and it must have been a real asset in your work and appreciated by a lot of the people you helped. I feel sure Karen welcomes it at such a painful time and I hope her continuing visits here afford her some comfort.

Roadie, there isn't a Pancreatic Cancer forum as such but there are innumerable threads about it in the Rare and Other Cancers forum. There are currently 18 pages there and you'll need to trawl through (or do a browser Find search) to get to the pancreatic cancer threads and most of the threads there contain only one or two postings.  Mind you, I'm not sure they're ready for you yet - maybe start gently with just 20 or 30 paragraphs?