nunoncastors

Sometimes life throws up a bump in the road that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be the lip of a ravine into which you tumble uncontrollably and dash your head on some rocks. Some people refer to this as ‘character building’ because; bless ‘em, they just don’t know any better.

So it was on Thursday when, having asked my father how he was, he replied that he was fine provided you didn’t count the recently discovered tumour eating one of his kidneys. To which, honestly, there is no adequate response beyond saying “What?” in an incredulous tone and looking stunned, there really isn’t.

It turns out that a few months back, when my father was the victim of an irritating hernia, the doctor had noticed some blood and protein in his urine (you know, as you do) and requested further checks. Curiously, these were the sort of checks that involved MRIs, CT scans and all manner of other technological marvels that endeavour to show you what’s going on in your innards. In this case, cancer, a rugby ball sized tumour happily eating away at a kidney. The bastard.

Now my father has major surgery to look forward to, and the rest of his life sans kidney which, though neither of us may show it, is a source of genuine perturbation. I mean, I’m not one for getting tearful and overwrought, which upsets my step-mother because she is, but it’s a bit scary, more so for my father obviously, and I’m not entirely sure what to do. I mean, I’m convinced everything’ll be fine, or at least as fine as it can be, but still, what do you do in a situation like this?

Best case scenario, he’s ok, worse case, well, I’m disinclined to think about it.