Woody Cavenaugh

Dad called me last night. That in and of its self is something of a miracle, in that he can now speak well enough to be understood on the telephone. Typically we limit our phone calls to Sunday morning at 8am, but he called me last night excited.

When they left the oncologist office they stopped by wally world to pick up a few things. One of the things they picked up was a box of ice cream sandwiches. It was hardly fair since he hasn't had solid food since December. Best he's been able to do was a donut and only then on a Monday morning when he's been off of radiation for a couple of days. His food comes from a can and is dumped into a tube which is installed in his stomach. Those of you who do the Slimfast/metafast/ensure thing know that if you drink that nutritional crap long enough you start to smell like it and it never smells like a good thing.

On the way home he just had to try to eat an ice cream sandwich. It went down. So he had another, which also went down. He couldn't taste it, but what the heck he could eat!!! That night he had a dinner of hog fish, stewed potatoes, and washed it down with a coke. It was his first meal since December and he felt like celebrating, so he called me.

As you can imagine it has taken a certain weight off of me. I can only worry about a certain finite number of things at once. When dad hit the top of the list my own personal health fell off of the bottom. Honestly, I think I have been eating on his behalf. Now my own health is back on the chart and what the hell did I do to my self....

I look like I ate a cow, I feel like an abandoned car, and I sorely need a haircut. But, what the heck, dad's good so I'm good.