Sunday 3rd January 2016 – 16:31

Life is for all men consistent, if in only that life is ongoing and chaotic. It has been four days since my world changed last and yet while the change affects me in no other way than by association, I am no less affected than if the diagnoses of colon cancer were my own.

I pray that I may never have to deal with such a terrifying suggestion, as I doubt I’d have the grace, patience and humility which my father has in dealing with this.

On the 30th of December, dad went to the hospital in Larbert for a Colonoscopy, after almost two months of going back and forth to his own GP, it took a visiting Dr from another practice, filling in for the day to refer him to the hospital. They removed a number of polyps only to find a mass at the latter end of his intestinal tract. The mass was big enough that the camera would go no further and without further information they have nothing more to do at this time.

A follow up appointment is forthcoming in the next few weeks, and with it will come a CT and full MRI to ascertain the full extent of the mass. If it is small enough, they will cut it away and recovery should be almost certain. If it is too big to cut away at first, they will attack the mass with chemotherapy and/or Radiotherapy to reduce the mass and again prepare it to be exercised from him and allow him the possibility of recovery.

Yet for now, this is all we know. No plans can be made, no information can be sought, no understandings can be fully realised until we know more.

I am four days with this knowledge and four days older, yet every day has aged me an eternity as I come to prepare myself to be there for the rest of my family, so that they be ready for the road ahead.

I feel confident that whatever comes, we shall face it together. I also truly believe he will recover, because he faces life with the same stubbornness and readiness that I try to live by.

I am my father’s child, I am the man he helped raise me to be.

I will live every day of my life trying to live as he lives, with honour, with hard work and passion in everything I do. And above all else, with love in my heart, love which every man is entitled too, but so few understand. He taught me to respect everyone, to love everyone and I will make him proud.