The Story of the Lost Eye...yes, I said EYE!!!

This morning the office called over the speaker for a child in my class to come to the office to call her mother asap. Ok, so let's call her J, goes down to the office. She comes back a few minutes later and approaches me at my table.

J...do you know why i had to call my mom?

me...no, why?

J...my mom was crying because her eye fell out

me...WHAT??? her eye fell out?

J...very calm...yea

me...what do you mean? is she okay?

J..yea, she is fine she just cant find it

me...WHAT?!?!? she can't find it? how did she lose it?

j...i dont know

me...i dont understand. has this happened before? why can't she find her eye? is it a real eye?

j...yea, it has come out before and she thought i had it...and yes it is real?

i am getting more confused as this conversation goes on and yet i continue...

me...are you sure her eye is real?

j...well, she was shot along time ago and it is kinda real and kinda not

me...okay, so her eye comes out and that is normal and she thinks you have it? why would you have it?

j....i dont know, but i dont have it

me...well i hope she finds it and is okay

This by far is the strangest conversation I have ever had!!! Now, J is identified as special ed and is fairly slow with most things. So here I am thinking that she is just confused herself. To make things more confusing...i have met her mother on several occasions and it is hard not to notice the "crazy eye" which i thought was a real eye. It looks off to who knows where and anyone would think that she had a lazy eye or as I labeled it "crazy". Now, someone explain to me why her fake eye is not focused forward? Why would you have a fake eye that looked off to who knows where? Isn't the point to make it unnoticable?

J is a pretty funny gal and she laughed throughout of conversation and I tried hard to keep it all in. Afterall, I was the adult in the room and there were 17 other pairs of eyes watching me.

When I was sharing this conversation with my teaching buddies another funny story was brought up.

Yesterday, we all received an email to check in a students backpack for something his mother was looking for. Now....what in the world would we say to an email that read like this?

Can you please look in J's backpack from her mother's eyeball?

HAHAHAHAHAHA

The Here and Now

We found out this week that my dad has cancer...chondrosarcoma to be exact. Cancer always just sounds bad, doesn't it? Whenever I hear someone has cancer you naturally feel bad for them, but somehow I feel just the opposite and it's my dad. How you ask? Well...over the past five years my dad has endured some very scary surgeries and this just, in my mind, doesn't compare. I remember finishing up my first year teaching and leaving the last day to get down to San Antonio for his first big surgery. He became the owner of new steel rod along with 6 screws in his neck. This was the first big surgery that anyone close to me had gone through and it was my dad...we are very close. I remember getting to Kerrville the night before and getting up super early to drive to San Antonio. The surgery seemed to take forever and waiting in a hospital isn't exactly the most comfortable place. Just the fact that they were working so close to his spine and spinal cord, I think was the most scary part. He came through great and healed faster than expected. :) Over the next few years he had various surgeries...his knee, his shoulder, his nose. All relatively minor and he came through just fine.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2008 things started going down a different route. He was stricken with severe sudden pain and was unable to walk. He hadn't been 'right' for months due to an injury at work and was getting the run-around by workers comp. He took a ride in the ambulance and after many, many doctor visits they made the decision to undergo surgery to fuse his lower back. Again working wth his spine, you can't help but keep the thought of being paralyzed in the back of your mind. So for Christmas last year, we loaded up and headed to Dallas for his surgery. I think was sticks with me the most about this particular surgery is the way I saw my dad. I think that is the most important thing for me to see that he was in need of something more than surgery. He and mom do not have a great relationship...hell, it would be a stretch to say they do not have a good relationship. For many years I have wondered how they stay together. My dad has always been a hard physical worker and with all the limitating factors he was encountering over the years, he became unable to do all those things he used to. It is only normal to become depressed when your whole life has changed against your will and you don't have your wife to express your emotions to. Anyway, while in Dallas my dad talked freely about things, mostly because of the meds, but I did learn lots of things. Mostly that he needed help...

So over the past year we have all been dealing with our 'family drama' in our own ways. I live 6 hours away and that alone provides me with distance from it all. My oldest sister, Carrie, wears her heart on her sleeve and it is beginning to take a toll on her. My other sister, Amy, basically rolls with punches. I have always wondered how she internalizes stressful situations. My mom...big sigh...I have always wondered with her as well about how she internalizes anything. The two of us couldn't be more opposite. I rarely understand why she does the things she does. Let's just say that my mom really isn't the talking type. If she is mad, she yells her opinion or opts for silence...there is no negotiation. I can't remember the last time we visited my parents and she and I did not get into a fight. It is just stressful thinking about visiting. In my opinion, I think my parents should have divorced atleast 1o years ago, but instead they opted to move to Kerrville for a fresh start. Well guy...this plan sucks! Nothing good has happened since the move and things have yet to change.

So this brings us to the present...January 2010...and the word...cancer
My dad's right hip has been hurting for months now and since he has been the care of a workers comp doctor, things haven't been handled very well. To make things worse, since he hasn't been working for over a year, my dad's life is fulfilled with phone calls, notes, papers, mri's, catscans, phone calls, paper....do you get it? He is completely comsumed by all the medical stuff. He spends everyday thinking about all the things he can't control and it is taking its toll. We have spent the past couple years worried about his physical health, but it is so apparent now that we should be focusing on this mental health.


So Carrie calls me and tell me that the results are in and she has special privileges of seeing them before his doctors appt on Friday. Dad was aware that this could be a possibility and we asked him if he wanted Carrie to look...he never really gave a straight answer. So I told Carrie I would call him to see how he was doing and if Carrie was going to look at the results. He quickly saw right through me and asked me what I knew. So I told him everything Carrie had told me and we began looking online for answers.

Chondrosarcoma, cancer of the cartlidge. It is the 2nd most come bone cancer, but yet is still quite rare. Only 1% if bone cancer is primary and he fell right into that 1%. Surgery would be necessary due to the fact that sarcoma does not respond to chemo or radiation. Okay, surgery...we've done this before. And since they it was a Grade 1...there was a 90% chance that once removed, it would not return. Great! Due to the fact that he had been so proactive on his healthcare the past few years we are hopeful that there are no other areas infected, we hope this will be confirmed with a full body bone scan.
He met with the doctor on Friday and they gave a more personalized treatment plan. Due to the positioning of the tumor they will most likely be performing a hip replacement. In the few weeks he will be meeting with a sarcoma specialist in San Antonio and hopefully his surgery will be underway before too much longer.
So another surgery is needed, the word cancer is being used and yet I am totally okay with it. We have a solution to the physical pain he has been in for months and it is treatable. Sounds great to me! I just hope that once his is recovering physically that we can work on him mentally too and get my dad back. I need him, Braxtyn needs him, Lauryn, Meagan, Carlie, Chase, Carrie, Amy, Mom...all need him. We all want him to get better and be in a happy place!

I LOVE YOU DAD!!!