D Day...The Day My World Stood Still

Ya know in the movies how after the bomb goes off and the smoke clears you always see someone squinting through the dust to see what's in front of them? That's how I felt after Warren's death. We had spent so long focusing on Warren and his family that we didn't have to pay attention to what was right in front of us the whole time. With him gone, we no longer had that "luxury." Now we had to deal with the reality that we were next.

Life wasn't always like this though...in fact, things were pretty darn good.  It wasn't until 2006 that things started to change.

That year, my dad began having severe sciatica...enough where he ended up in the ER from the pain. An MRI showed nothing major and he was off to physical therapy.

This is one of the last times I remember seeing my dad standing somewhat upright... at my son's 3rd birthday party. It was in 2007 that my father began to hunch forward from the waist up. As days passed, it became more and more difficult for him to stand on his own at all. He saw his primary care physician who sent him back for physical therapy but no change. He went to see my chiropractor. No change. And then the falling began.

After a fall on the ice in December 2008, he seemed to be getting worse. I took him to see my back doctor to see if there was anything he could do. Dr Hudgens was the first to see and diagnose the drop foot which he thought was causing the falls my father was experiencing. Dad began wearing a leg brace on one leg in January 2009 and using a walker to help him get around. He was back in physical therapy but nothing seemed to be helping.

In January of 2009, his primary care physician ran into him in the hospital hallway and noticed severe weight loss. He came in to be seen and had a number of tests run. During one of those tests, they found a growth on his bladder.  In March of 2009, my dad underwent the first of many surgeries for what turned out to be bladder cancer. Who knew that this would be the least of our problems.
Doctor after doctor, no one could tell us why my dad was hunched over at a 90 degree angle. My sister and brother, both physical therapists, began doing research on their own and thought maybe he had a disease called Camptocormia which is related to Parkinsons. We made our first visit to a neurologist who specialized in this area and she ruled out that possibility. She suggested it might be Myopathy and sent us to another neurologist who specialized in that.

At the end of April, my father made a trip to Highland Park Hospital to see Dr Shaw. He suggested my father have an EMG done...which he did. The results showed some deterioration in the muscles but we still didn't have an answer.

We went back to see Dr Shaw on November 17, 2009. It was at this appointment that our lives forever changed. It was D Day...Diagnosis Day. Dr Shaw handed my father a death sentence when he told us he had ALS.

I was with my parents at that appointment. Once the doctor said ALS, the rest became blurred. It was like the teacher in Charlie Brown...I could hear noise but I couldn't make out what was being said. Because of Warren, I knew what this meant so all I heard was my father is going to die.
When we walked out of the office, my father stopped and sat on a concrete slab in front of the elevator. He hung his head for a minute and looked back up at my mother and I. My mom was crying. I was crying. With tears in his eyes and a shaky voice, my father said, "Listen you two... I'm gonna be fine. Ok? I'm gonna be fine. Don't worry about me."

I helped my dad into the car and my mother asked me to call my brother and sister to tell them what had happened. She couldn't muster up the strength to do it. I watched them drive off as I walked to my own car...blurry red tail lights through my tears. It was brisk outside and I remember seeing my breath as my breathing started to change. I got into my own car, slumped over the steering wheel and completely broke down. I cried for a full 5 minutes before I made any movement or picked up my phone to call my siblings to tell them the news.

My dad may have thought he would be fine, but I knew better. These would not be the only tears I would shed. No...this was just the beginning.