Medical Fund For Dad

You remember the day when the walls of your castle crumble to the ground, for me it was an unassuming Thursday. I was Skyping with my dad and he told me he had been diagnosed with colon cancer. You don't know how to react, what to think, how to move on. You think that if you only lived closer, if you had come home more often, or called more you could have done something when in reality none of those things would have made any difference. So here you are facing the big “C” word and it's nauseating just saying it, cancer. I have spent sleepless nights and many moments just counting my breaths to keep me from completely breaking down. On the outside I'm calm and quiet when on the inside I'm freaking out. I've had an incredibly hard time dealing with this and have kept quiet about it because I don't know how to talk about it, how to deal with it. See, my dad is one of the most important people in my life and always has been. He's the man who has always stood by me encouraging me to take chances and giving me the boost of confidence when I need it. Letting me know it's okay to fail just as long as I try. He is the man who has taught me to have pride in what I do, work hard, and take time with the ones you love. He is the one I call when I need to be calmed down and have things be put into perspective. As he's telling me he has cancer all I can think of is when I was little and he'd call into work and he'd call me out of school and we'd go on an adventure. I doubt he thinks I remember those times, but I do and all I want is to be little again and wake up and go downstairs thinking I'm going to school and instead I get to spend the day with my dad. But I'm not little anymore and now the man who has helped me through the hardest times in my life (now, the seemingly minuscule) needs my help. I'm the one who has to be strong and while I try, I want to do more. I want to do more for him because he has given me so much, enriched my life and gave me worth. He deserves more. So now after his chemo and radiation treatments and surgery we start the next step in his recovery. We are lucky. We have a happy ending. After his surgery his pathology report has come back clean, his doctor is confident that he got all of the cancer and has him continuing chemo to make sure. But his life is different now and it will never be the same as before. But, we can move forward. I know how lucky I am that I can say that. We can move forward. I don't have to stop and count my breaths so much anymore. But we're only months into this and the bills are mounting, hospital bills, co pays, medication, medical supplies, fuel for the 106 mile round trip drive to the doctor and he's struggling to take care of them all. So what do you do? I would give him everything I have if he would let me, but he won't. So I will do what I can do, the hardest thing for me to do, ask for help. I just want to relieve some of the burden on him and my step-mom. He has taught me to conquer the world but this time I can't do it by myself. So I ask you, my friends and family, to help my dad through this.