More of the path to here

I was telling you about the day in July 2004 when my father's doctor called him in to the hospital to discuss the results of his blood tests from earlier that morning. My parents headed downtown and I stayed home so my sister, who we were expecting on a visit from Fredericton, wouldn't arrive to an empty house.

My mother called shortly to let me know that Dad was being admitted. His hemoglobin was low and his white blood cells were out of whack. He needed a blood transfusion right away and the doctor wanted to run some more tests.

After the transfusion, he was released the next day, to wait for his test results. I headed back to Toronto to start my new job and write my final exams. The evening after my third day at work, I wrote my last exam, and called home from a pay phone at the school after the exam was over.

Dad told me that he was still waiting on the final results, but the doctor was pretty sure it was leukemia. I can picture that moment clearly - standing in the stark hallway, with classmates walking past, chatting away. Suddenly, I couldn't hear them anymore, and the word 'leukemia' just echoed in my ears and I couldn't move.

The next day, the doctor confirmed the diagnosis. He had Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML). At 74 years old, there wasn't much they could do for him. They said that the chemo required would kill him before the cancer would. All they could do was give him blood transfusions when his hemoglobin got too low. His doctor said that if he lived until Christmas, he would be lucky.

So, he set goals. He wanted to live until September, for his 75th birthday. Then, October, for his 50th Anniversary. After that, he was looking forward to Christmas.

His main goal, though, was to live long enough to see my first child born, expected to be late in February.

I'll tell you about that next time...

Starting down the path to here

Long before I was a stay-at-home Dad, I was a business student at Ryerson University in Toronto. I started my B.Comm when I was almost 30, so I was in a rush to finish it off and get back into the workforce. So, I loaded up on courses as much as I could and went through the summers and finished the 4-year degree program in 2 and 1/2 years. I was pretty tired, but was excited to be getting back to real life.

Partway through my final spring semester, with a fall graduation in sight, my wife went into the bathroom with a home pregnancy test. I didn't expect that there was any way she could be pregnant already. We hadn't specifically decided to try to have a baby, but we had just decided to stop not trying. When I heard her gasp in the bathroom, I knew I was wrong.

Wow, we were excited. We couldn't wait to share the excitement with our families. Everyone was so happy for us. I had a gap between my last classes and my final exams, so we headed to the East coast to visit our parents in New Brunswick and Price Edward Island. While we were hanging out at my in-law's cottage in PEI, I accepted a job offer for a sales position I had interviewed for before we left Toronto.

My wife stayed at her parents' cottage for an extended visit while I headed back to Toronto to start my new job. First, I spent a few more days with my parents in New Brunswick. While I was there, my father finally went to see his doctor about shortness of breath he had been experiencing. A few hours after his early morning appointment, my mother had an appointment with her doctor, who shared office space with Dad's doctor. While she was in the waiting room, Dad's doctor came up to her and said that Dad's blood work was back and he needed to come straight back to the hospital.

I'll never forget my mother, coming into the house, pale as a ghost, telling me to run to the back yard and get Dad off of the lawnmower. Dad, as I suspected, was more annoyed at the inconvenience than he was worried, and cursed a bit, but agreed to head straight downtown.

Story to be continued...

Time for some serious blogging

Maybe you've seen my other blog. I rarely write about serious stuff there. That's why I started this blog. This will be my serious blog. My serious blog about being a stay-at-home dad (SAHD). Because that's what I am.

I will be writing about how I came to be a SAHD, what my days at home are like, what I like or dislike about this SAHD gig and maybe even some advice for other stay-at-home dads or even moms.

So, stay tuned. Serious SAHD discussions to follow. But for now, I have to go try to convince my son to go back to sleep. It's late, for Pete's sake.

Lloyd