I Miss My Dad

My dad's name was Gerald Lynn and about 3 years ago I got a call from my family that my dad had myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). MDS is a disease that is usually seen in older men from the age of 60 to 75. It's a disease in which a person's bone marrow isn't making enough healthy blood cells. The following risk factors make a person more likely to get MDS: (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/myelodysplastic/Patient/page1)

1. being male or caucasian.
2. being older than 60.
3. A past treatment with chemotherapy.
4. Being exposed to certain chemicals, including tobacco smoke, pesticides, and solvents such as benzene.
5. Being exposed to heavy metals, such as mercury or lead.

4 out of 5. That's what it took to raise the likelihood enough for my dad to get MDS and start his battle with cancer. MDS is a strange form of cancer that is sometimes called pre-leukemia. If MDS is untreated it becomes AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia). If you treat it, you can sometimes get it to go into remission but more commonly people just live with MDS while managing the symptoms. For that reason, it is usually aggressively treated.

My dad was treated. Infact, he went through chemotherapy for some time, got lined up for a bone marrow transplant, found a donor, he was doing well and it seemed like he might make it. Dad was out of breath a lot and had a difficult time walking because he got tired so easily but he was in good spirits and things were looking up. 

Unfortunately, it was discovered that the chemotherapy drug he was on caused heart damage. The shortness of breath and tired feeling was a result of the heart damage. The end result of this was he was no longer a bone marrow donation candidate. My dad was forced to go off chemotherapy because of the heart damage. He just did was he could to keep his spirits up while facing the facts that there was little to no hope.

Even in his darkest days, dad still managed to treat people well and elicit smiles from those around him. I went with him for a blood transfusion once and he used his charm to illicit such a warm response from the nurses that to this day I still wish that I could be more like him. Here he was, knowing that he was dying and he still took the time to find out about the personal details of the people he interacted with and remember them later so that he could ask about them. He cared about people, genuinely, and everyone could feel that.

My dad passed away in April of 2009 from renal failure as a result of the MDS turning into AML and his kidneys no longer being capable of keeping up with the cleaning of his blood. AML causes the kidneys to lose their cleaning capability by destroying the nephrons and eventually the kidneys are insufficient at cleaning the blood. When that happens a person goes into renal failure and dies unless they have a kidney transplant or begin dialysis.

When dad started having renal problems he ended up in the hospital. They kept him there for several days and were planning on releasing him. His passing came suddenly. I like to think that he came to grips with his own mortality and fear of death and finally allowed himself to move on. 

My dad should have had a lot of years left in him but cancer took him from me early. F U cancer, I miss my dad.