Mourning

I would rather not write this post. In fact, I would much rather write another post about my French teacher, sewing, cooking or anything beyond what is happening in real life. As most of you know my grandfather had prostate cancer and he went into remission many years ago. Then a couple of years ago the cancer came back and now along with prostate cancer he also has bone cancer. My grandfather has gone through radiation, chemo, hormone therapy and some other treatments. The last treatment he was on was no longer effective and so I met my family at the University of Illinois at Chicago on Wednesday to discuss other options. 

Laid out in black and white here are the options 1) Go through some more horrendous treatment, 2) Do nothing and 3) there are two trials currently available. The choice was to go with option three that is a hybrid of option one-another horrible round of radiation, and a new drug that he has a 50/50 chance of getting. I think that he is not ready to give up quite yet and plus the option he went with will help knock out a bit of the bone cancer that is causing so much pain. One of the other difficulties is that my grandfather cannot tolerate pain medication. I'm kind of thinking of slipping him some brownies. It may be a good idea to give Grammie some too. 

It has been a very hard week and it has been hard to come to the realization that he is dying. His last days are going to be spent fighting such an insidious and painful disease and if I could I would spare him that pain.

I also received word that Namis, one of our translators in Iraq, passed away. He was the kindest, sweetest man, who I know I mentioned quite a few times in my other blog. He has a beautiful wife that is many years younger then him. His oldest son and daughter are in their early twenties and one of the younger daughters recently got married, but his youngest daughter is only five years old. I am sorry she will not grow up to know her father. He was the type of man that did his most to make the world a better place, even as people were trying to kill him and take away his way of life. My heart is heavy.