not related to eos, but could use your thoughts

[Guest guest]

Hello everyone -

I've been pretty quiet lately. 's eosinophilic esophagitis went away while just on zantac and propulsid treatment, so I guess our GI gets to do the "I told you so" speech. It was his feeling that the EE was solely caused by the long-term esophageal irritation.

I've been having a pretty tough week, and it just occurred to me that I'm pretty depressed right now. I didn't want to talk to any of my friends on the phone, and that's pretty unusual. LOL.

See, I live 1300 miles away from all of my family, and all of my husband's family. We've lived out here for six years now, and have been back home a small number of times. has seen our family one time.

My grandfather, who had a quintuple bypass surgery a year ago, was feeling very flu-ish for the past month. Last week he lost his voice. He drove to the specialist an hour away for some testing. They discovered he had a large tumor in his right lung. Friday night I found out it was small cell lung cancer, the most aggressive form of lung cancer. He was incredibly fortunate that the tumor grew where it did... if he had not lost his voice, he would have not found the cancer until it was too late. Without treatment, life expectancy is 2-4 months. Now he has a 50% chance of living one year. They have told him that he will live for 15-24 months.

I am so overwhelmed by my sadness right now that I am crying as I type these words. While I won't proclaim he is a saint and not deserving of such a fate, I insist that he is a good decent man who should not be told his life will be over so soon. My childhood was miserable at best, but my grandparents were a ray of sunlight through the thunderclouds. I remember so many gruff, yet tender, moments spend with them. And I just cannot accept why that must end. And it hurts me so deep that my son will never have any of the wonderful memories that I have. That he will never get to really know my grandfather. To know why my husband and I laugh every time he puckers up his lips and sticks them out as far as he can to kiss me (my grandfather gave me these fish-lips kisses).

We are flying back home in a month to see him. I'm looking forward to getting to meet my grandfather again. I know that I will have wonderful memories to keep and share with as he gets older. But dammit, I don't want to live with a bunch of memories, I want the real deal. In some ways, my grandparents were more of parents to me than my real parents. I don't want to lose that.

Sorry this is so long, I just needed to say those words. Thank you for listening.