And your big secret, too!

Well, here we go. This is either a great way to communicate with other dads, or I’m ranting and raving to myself. That being said, here’s the best, and probably the only kept secret in my family. 3 years ago, I had a malignant tumor removed from my thyroid. I’m the only one that knows it was a malignant tumor. I’ve lied over and over again to people, even my mother, who graciously drove me to UPenn to have the thing taken out. To this day, she believes that I was having a parathyroid gland removed. So does anyone else in my real life. You have no idea how hard it is to get a doctor to “pretend” anything. There were 3 doctors involved in my case, all of which were instructed to vehemently lie to my mother since she was with me every step of the way. I thought I was going to have to get a damn court order at one point, because doctors don’t seem to understand the idea of making up a plausible excuse. But they reluctantly did so. Why? My father died of cancer when I was 8 years old. I watched my mom go through losing a husband, a best friend, and the father of her 3 kids. I can’t bring myself to tell her ANY of this, I can’t scare her like that. I can’t scare my girlfriend like that either, since we have a happy, healthy, 8 month old little boy now. Wesley is everything I could have ever imagined my son to be, and more. WAY more. Well, since the surgery was a success, why not tell folks that you’re one of those cancer-thrivers now and get some support? Because, the surgery was only a TEMPORARY success. They expect the tumor to come back. They expect the cancer to eventually kill me. When and how are questionable, but the prognosis is “highly likely”. The tumor will come back, and sooner or later, surgery won’t be an option. They’ll have to move to chemo, and it is unfortunately not very successful against this type of aggressive cancer. It’s funny how I look at Wes now and selfishly contemplate my own mortality. How do I explain any of this to him when he’s older? Should I even bother, or let him live the life he was intended without this type of interference? I really don’t know how to do that. Wes is going to have a strange enough time growing up. Sam is a wonderful mother and girlfriend, but she does tend to be seriously overprotective and controlling (she has literally tried to tell me how to physically move my hand once while I was searching for a key and not finding it fast enough for her). Not kidding. On top of that, he has to grow up with a dad with a bad back. I don’t mean your usual “just getting older” bad back, I mean multiple surgeries, rods in place for stabilization, and a fusion on the horizon that will only be the first of many. Needless to say, I can’t stress my spine at all. I try so hard to protect the people I love, especially Wes, from knowing or experiencing the type of pain I live in from my “luck of the genetic f—ing draw”. I’m 33 years old. I shouldn’t have to deal with this crap – I shouldn’t have to be putting more money into my life insurance than into my retirement account. But it’s more likely that I’ll need the former instead of the latter. But my bull is starting to wear on me. I’m starting to wonder if Wes will have to grow up the same way I did – without a dad. Mine was only 9 years older than I am today when he passed. I question whether or not I’ll surpass his age, and what I can put into place to prevent my own son from going through the struggle of adolescence without “fatherly guidance” the way I did. But I don’t want to destroy his innocence unless I have to. The ugly truth is, we will all go at one time, and we will all have to have the mortality talk with our kids, but I’m afraid that telling him will destroy his childhood innocence. There it is, I’m afraid. I’m afraid for my son, I’m afraid for my girlfriend (his mother), I’m afraid for my family. How will they continue on without me? Will they be able to? Will Wesley still grow up to be the great man that I can see him becoming if I’m not there to guide him? How about this – what the hell am I supposed to do? How do I explain to my son that he is the last descendant of our family line, that our family name ends with him without simultaneously explaining that I won’t be around forever, maybe not even through his teen years? I guess the only thing I can hope is that he becomes everything I see in him, and he’s a stronger person, with a stronger character than I. So there is my deep, dark secret, and the deep, dark thoughts that accompany it. So this is one of those “feel sorry for me” posts I guess. But I’ll continue on a good note.

We’re on vacation, and despite teething and coming down with a cold, my son is SO happy to be at the beach! The little man popped his first tooth within 48 hours before we left – we’re not sure of the exact time, because he showed no overt signs of teething. Sure, he was a little more difficult to handle than usual, but not so difficult that we thought he was cutting a tooth! Suddenly when we were playing his warble game (ya know, when you pucker out your lips and rapidly move your finger up and down while making noise) there was a tooth jabbing into my finger! Sam thought I was just feeling his gums, but in her defense, I’ve thought I’ve felt a tooth about 85,000 times in the last 6 months. Naturally, not believing what I felt was an actual tooth, she double-checked. Tooth confirmed! When did he start growing up so fast? There’s such a personality on him now, and he’s so full of wonder and curiosity. We went to the aquarium the other day, and I wasn’t really watching the fish/sharks/etc. I was watching Wes. It’s so incredible to see him study things, especially the sting rays and sharks, with the amount of focus he does. He studies every movement, every nuance with great detail. I know to some degree he’s just learning about the world around him, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a child his age focus so intently on specific things. They usually appear to be all over the place, studying something for a short time, then on to something else. He studies things as long as he can, he locks in and focuses, apparently in very intricate detail, as long as we’ll let him usually (or until hunger sets in). It’s almost as if the rest of the world fades away when he’s studying something. I guess every dad thinks this way about their kid(s) though :). We probably all see small things like that and think “s/he must be a genius!” Especially on the first one from what I’ve read. I mean, who doesn’t want to believe that their kid could be the next Nobel laureate or historic astronaut, etc.? Maybe I’m just an overly proud dad, who knows.

Tomorrow is our last day at the beach, and then our long trek home begins on Sunday. Hopefully the little guy is as good for the ride home as he was for the ride here.

Well, there’s my current mixed bag of emotional garbage for all who read it! Probably nobody, but at least it feels good to put it down into words.