Prognosis

So it's been a long few weeks here at my house. I'm a bit depressed, to tell the truth. I hope that I will have a little pity party and then turn into this masterful superhero-esque female with bulging biceps who takes on the weight of the world without breaking a sweat (this may prove difficult as shoulder-presses just slay me...) but I suspect I'll be lucky to get my ass out of bed everyday and get my hour and fifteen minute long workouts in before I realise that my life is ridiculously difficult.

My dad has been diagnosed with stage IV melanoma. Without treatment, we could expect him to live 6-9 months. Fortunately, there are a few treatment options that we are willing to try. The first, and most promising, is a new drug (the name of which apparently sounds like umpa-loompa, according to my mother) that he'll be able to start on if his blood work determines that he has a BRAF gene mutation. If he does (here's hoping!) it looks like we can expect it to prolong his life for two years. If he does not have the gene mutation, he is going to undergo two rounds of chemotherapy followed by immunotherapy, however the chances of that combo working is a lot less than our first bet. As you could imagine, two years left with my dad seems like the biggest rip-off ever... and that's the best case scenario. So I'm a bit pissed off with the world right now. Naturally, we all handle ourselves as best as we can. And in our family, we handle ourselves with humour. He mentions that the doctor encouraged him to avoid any activity that is going to get his heart rate up too high, so I'm like, "Okay mum... time to start dressing like a nun." So lols all around, and then my mum replies, "I can't, he'd like that too much."

So we're coping in our special... special ways. Unfortunately, it's going to be about two weeks until we find out whether or not he has this gene mutation. So, as I said to my dad earlier, "This may be the weirdest thing I've ever said, but I really hope you're a genetic mutant."