Day 34

Every morning, Leah wakes up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 and takes Casey out before getting ready for work. When she comes back and and gets in the showers. Casey jumps back in to bed, essentially steps all over me and wakes me up, before curling up and falling back asleep. Most of the time I fall back asleep with no problems, but lately I haven't been able to as much. This morning I tossed and turned until around 6:45 and lied in bed listening to Howard for a while before getting up. I was doing a lot of thinking about the last year, specifically where I was this time last year. My father was into his chemotherapy sessions and living at the Cleveland Clinic. My brother and I were doing shifts with my mother; half of the week he was there, and other half of the week I was there. We are coming up to what was at the time to be the worst week I ever had to endure at that point in my life. Little did I know, it would only get worse. Next week I will talk more about this, but it was in my thoughts this morning.

I just cannot explain to everyone how strong my mother was during that time. She was the most unbelievable advocate for my father that their could have been. She was always on. Always knew every question to ask the doctors and nurses during my father's treatments. This was so unbelievably draining on her, but she pressed on everyday, never once letting my father see any sign of weakness. And she was tough. We got a lot of mixed information at the Clinic. That is one of my major beefs with the whole process. We had so many different people giving us so many different opinions. You never knew who to believe. That was the most frustrating part of it all. Its hard to believe that a year ago at this time, we were going through an experience that would change all of our lives forever. Its something I would love to forget and erase from my memory but can't. If it were only a bad dream.......

I'm off for my night, morning, and day in the great state of Indiana. I'll have a full report on the Notre Dame tailgating experience went at some point on Sunday. The weather in South Bend tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and 60 degrees. I'll take that.

Song of the Day: "Rejoice" by Sizzla.