I don't know how many of you knew it, but my father was diagnosed with esophogeal cancer in January and was given only a few months to live without any intervention, which he had decided was what he was going to do. Our GP doc talked to him and told him that without treatment he had just a few months and it would be a really bad few months, with the cancer blocking access to the stomach and literally starvation. The tumor would also slough dead cells and poison his system to boot. So, he had chemo and radiation, then surgery, and currently is having another round of chemo. He almost died from several complications during the first chemo/rad round, then again after the surgery (they removed his entire esophagus and 1/3 of his stomach, then pulled his stomach up into the chest and hooked it to where the esophagus had been), and now has a paralyzed left vocal chord and had just started eating food in the past two weeks since May 13th. I have rented out my house and moved here with him to care for him. So, that's the beginning of this story in a nutshell...

I have had such a deja-vu experience this week. I went back to work full-time while Dad is OK alone during the day, so I am not here to do all the little things all week. I have to shove everything into the weekend, so I don't really pick up after either of us much until Saturday mornings. Dad goes to breakfast with my uncle and some others at around 7 and comes home from my uncles' house around 1. I had planned to scrub the floors and vacuum, change the beds, do laundry, cook some things for the following week for dinner, dust, straighten up, etc. on Saturday. Dad mentioned on Wednesday evening that the kitchen floor needed to be washed, and I told him I was going to do it Saturday. Well, when I got home Thursday from work, he had scrubbed the kitchen and bath floors, vacuumed the whole house, done all the laundry and cleaned the fridge and stove, taken a shower and had dinner on the stove. When I said something about it, he told me that I would have found something else to do Saturday (which I ultimately did...take him to the doctor!) and if I didn't, (and I quote here!), "Your room could stand to be cleaned." Horrors! 40 years immediately dropped away and I was 16 again, being chastised for not keeping my room straight! Deja-vu all over again!!!