[RIJIMMY]

So we find out last October my Dad has bladder cancer, stage 4, already in the lymph nodes. My Dad has always been active, runs, swims, watches what he eats, he is 63. This hit my family very hard.
Things did not look good, he couldnt eat, lost weight, pain, weakness, the whole range. Since the cancer is already outside of the bladder, the docs say it should not be removed but they need to proceed with chemo. After 6 months of hard core chemo, the test results came back extremely positive, lymph nodes looked good and miracuously, the bladder was clean too.
My Dad's health started to improve, he gained weight, exercised and things looked good.
Then a few weeks ago he started going downhill quickly, couldnt eat, began feeling weak. In three weeks, he became worse than he was before. We get the test results yesterday that the cancer is in the liver, and possibly the lungs. He is in bad shape. They are resuming chemo but cannot hit him with full doses becasue of the toxcicity from the previous rounds.
They'll know in a few weeks if the chemo is doing any good. Regardless, the outlook is not good. I just don't want the guy to suffer. You always kow this time will come but its pretty hard to deal with. My folks are in Florida which makes it worse.
Make sure you guys get regular check-ups, cancer is a lot easier to deal with when its caught early. My Dad's wasnt.
Not sure why Im sharing this but Im sure others have gone through this and it feels good to get it off my chest.
jim