I have a step-brother (actually, there’s another one, but he doesn’t deserve the air that he breaths, so for all purposes we don’t count him) and he just turned 45 about two weeks ago.
He was always the family screw up. Certainly good natured, but unable to find his niche most of his life. Amazingly, that’s changed over the last decade and now he has many things to recommend him besides an endearing goofy personality. I mean, he’s even somewhat respected for small town east Texas… with a marriage well past the 20 year mark, 4 well-adjusted children (the oldest will graduate this year and the baby is in fourth grade), a brief military stint and finally, an elected job as a constable. Who knew when he was young and irresponsible, staying in his car with nothing but his dog, that he’d turn out this way and make everyone proud?
And all that is for fucking naught because he started coughing up blood.
They took him to the emergency room yesterday and by late afternoon, he’d had a CAT scan.
As of the evening, they’d discovered a tumor on his aortic valve and too many more to count spread across his liver and lungs.
Before I left him in Tyler, his kids were already told what to expect… with chemo, he may have as much as a year. Without, because it might not help anyway, he might have as little as six months.
Today they do a biopsy for confirmation.
I wish this made sense. I wish I could swap. I wish railing at god would help. I wish I could pray.
