My Dad's Story

by Cathy Weeks

A little background before the story begins

Background: On October 30, 1995, my odyssey began. Actually this was just the day I was informed that my father might have cancer. My story begins somewhat earlier.

I graduated from college in 1991 with a degreen in English Writing/Literature and had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with it. I got a job as a "Word Processing Operator" where I worked essentially as a typist for 18 months before I went back to school to get an MA in English Education, thinking that I would like to teach High School English (little did I know how difficult it would be!!). I finally did my student teaching February through April of 1995 (an absolutely exhausting time!).

After student teaching was over, I landed an assistantship at the MU medical school, writing and designing Web pages for professors there, in order to help them with their curriculum. (oh, yeah, somewhere along the way, I learned how to write HTML code for WWW design).

Then I found out about a local high school that needed a part-time english teacher, starting in August of 1995. I applied and got the job, working as an English teacher, a GRA, and taking a class all at the same time. (It was a combination that was doomed to failure, but I didn't realize that at the time.) After just a few weeks, I turned in my resignation, but I taught for another 7 weeks. November 1st, 1995 was my last day.

I had already found a new job (my current one, and it's one I really enjoy) and started full-time on November 2nd. But on October 30th, a Monday, two days before I finished my teaching position, my mother called to tell me that Dad might have cancer. Actually, despite my fears about Dad, I was no longer depressed about the teaching job. Instead, I was scared and angry. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but what went through my head was "How dare he get sick!! I'm too young to deal with this! (I was 26 at the time).

It had never occured to me that a member of my family might get cancer. Other than my Grandmother's breast cancer, which happened before I was born, we really had no history of cancer in our family.

And Dad really wasn't in a high-risk category. He had quit drinking in 1974, and he quit smoking (after 14 years of pack-a-day smoking) in 1969, the day I was born. People who both smoke and drink are at a MUCH higher risk than people who don't smoke or drink. Dad had done both but it had been more than two decades since he'd done either. He was 56 years old, and in good health; he exercized every day at lunch, he ate healthy, well-balanced foods, and his weight didn't fluctuate (he was always a little pudgy, 185 lbs at 5' 7 1/2" tall).

So why did Dad get cancer? Who knows. We have our theories: Dad had taken large daily quantities of aspirin and Ibuprofin for chronic headaches and joint pain, and had done so for many years. Large quantities of aspirin and ibuprofin over long periods of time have been linked to Barrett's Esophagus, a pre-cancerous condition.

Entry 2: The Odyssey Begins: The diagnosis and how I found out about it.
Alternate title: The Amazing Story.

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