My Dad has MDS

My Dad has MDS. My Dad was the healthiest 70 year old in the world, he eats veggies from his garden, took walks and worked out with weights, makes awful fart jokes, has a healthy and loving marriage and was even doing concrete work for my brother's Ready-Mix. My Dad is one of the strong guys. Until last Spring. He took the anti-biotic Levaquin and it robbed him of his immediate health and stole the vitality from his very marrow. So now he has MDS, a rare blood disease that has him on chemo one week a month and the rest of the family on edge every day.

I found out about a month ago. My sister called me on a Friday night to say that Dad had been sent to the hospital in Greeley, 250 miles from their home and he had to stay there for a week. At the time, having ‘just MDS’ sounded ok, "it isn't Leukemia" my Mom said, sounding relieved. I did what any self-respecting internet addict would do and Googled the thing, got all kinds of great medical/support info and some useless information (like Carl Sagan had MDS). I called the folks every few days to check in. I planned to fly home to Colorado for the final 2 days of his initial chemo treatment.

Then I got back to Colorado and it hit me. My Dad is sick, really, scarily sick. Ashy grey and so tired he started to cry at one point. I did what I could to help when I was there, buying them gas, taking Mom to lunch at the hospital and shopping for some new clothes and just listening to her. But then I had to leave and I am useless here.

So I thought I'd blog about it, blog about the disease, blog about my Dad, blog about the thoughts on MDS and my Dad that sit in my brain day-to-day. Maybe someday, somebody will find me by Googling MDS and I can entertain or distract them with my rambling.