My dad’s name is Larry McNichols. The guy I call my hero, my best friend, my king.  The guy my world revolves around. I get mad at him, I don’t listen sometimes, and I talk back…but I love him. His approval for things makes everything easier. I don’t think I could list the things he’s given up for my brothers and I if I had all day. I can’t imagine my life without him.

February 6. It was a Thursday. I’d just gotten home from a night at work. My hero sat me down on the couch and said the doctors found a tumor in his bladder.

I’ve never cried more in my life.

I sat there numb. I couldn’t move. I was the second person, after my mom, in my family to know. When he started crying was when I couldn’t sit there anymore, I’d never seen my dad cry before. I sucked it up, stopped crying, and I left, took my keys and my phone and left. I went from astonished to mad to sad in .02 seconds. I didn’t get any further than the front seat of my car before I started crying again.

My initial thought was, “No. How can this be happening? Cancer? My family? Nah.”

Then I got pinched. It wasn’t a nightmare, it was reality. 

Two weeks later he had surgery to remove the tumor while I sat in class and tried to act like nothing was wrong.

When a tumor is found it is not quite cancerous. If it is a benign tumor they can be removed and it is gone. Problem solved. Malignant tumors, on the other hand, are cancerous and are made up of cells that grow out of control. Cells in these tumors can invade nearby tissues and spread to other parts of the body. Which means if it doesn’t get attention fast, it can spread to other parts of the body.

The tumor was malignant. And then everything changed.

Calls started to be made to family I’ve never even heard of. We started going to church on a regular basis again. Hugs became a daily activity.

I still can’t believe it’s happening. My family? My dad? Cancer has always been a thing, but I’ve never known someone who had to overcome this thing.

With a book in one hand and my dad’s hand in the other, we walked past the painted-over graffiti wall. While my parents and I walked in the building where I used to get my shots when I was little, the “C word” lingered in my head.

It was 9:30 on the second day of spring break and I was spending it in the hospital next to my dad. In a chair while he got drugs piled in him that I can’t even pronounce.

Doctors surrounded us, none I remember the names of, acting like they cared. Well, I’m sure they did, but it didn’t feel like it. From wrong directions from the check up room to the actual drug filled room, my first impression of the doctors, who held my father’s life in their hands, wasn’t very good.

Tuesday, March 25; it was the first day of a long journey for my father.

Stage 2 bladder cancer is a reality, his first day of chemotherapy.

They say you can’t let it be another thing in the room. But when he’s in the room it feels like there’s something more. Every family dinner since, it’s been the elephant in the room. The thing everybody talks about. Usually, it’s the only thing we talk about.

And on top of trying to remember that it’s a thing and we have to fight this, we have financial problems. Like the $2,000 surgery bill we got the other day, and the $150 doctor bill we got the next day. Those are the first of many to come. Papers that come in the mail that tell us what his insurance won’t cover, what we have to pay out of pocket. Money we don’t have.

Over the next two months, my hero is enduring two rounds of chemo. Each round is three doctor visits. The first visit is two kinds of drugs, and the second and third only one. Each visit, eight days apart, and each round three weeks.

The cancer is in the walls of his bladder, which means when they removed the tumor it didn’t take the problem away.

In May of this year, if the chemo doesn’t work, he will spend a week in Iowa City after having his bladder removed. After that week, he has two months of recovery time in bed.

That may not sound like a lot, but for my family it is. It is almost $1,000 a week that my family doesn’t have for bills. We have started the search for disability but so far no luck.

My brothers and I have started making bracelets to try and help. To try and repay back everything my parents have sacrificed for us. We are selling them for $10 each to try and make a small dent in the pile of doctor bills they are already starting to receive.

How do you deal with it? You don’t. The first few times you try and talk to someone about it tears come out like Niagra Falls. Then eventually you talk about it so much you finally stop crying when someone mentions the word. You take a deep breath every morning getting out of bed and smile. Because that’s what you’re expected to do. It’s what you have to do to not see your mom cry every day.

The first week or so my parents wouldn’t stop telling me all they wanted was for my brother and I to live our normal lives. To not adjust our busy life’s for them. But how can you not stay home on a Friday night with them, when you realize that they won’t always be at home on the couch, waiting for you to walk in the door ten seconds before your curfew.

My mom is 53 and my dad is 52, having older parents has always been a positive thing for me. They tend to be smarter with life decisions, and they don’t understand what we’re saying when my brother and I use “yolo” or jokes that are after their time. But recently it’s dawned on me, that I will lose my parents before most of you lose yours.

My hero might not get to read my acceptance letter to the college of my dreams. I might not have my dad to walk me down the aisle or my mom to hold my hand, if or when, I have my first child. They might not be there to see me graduate college. They might not get to achieve my dreams with me. They won’t be there.

This whole cancer thing is bringing that all a little more closer.

Cancer can change a family for better or for worse. Right now, it’s bringing us all a little more closer. It’s changed the way we all look on life. Taking every moment for what it is and not taking it for granted.

“When someone has cancer, the whole family and everyone who loves them has it too.”

This is the journey we will face as a family.

FRIDAY, MAY 2 — BBQ FUNDRAISER — NORTH HIGH COURTYARD

IF RAINING, WE WILL BE IN THE ROTC ROOM. 3PM-4:15PM.