"Do You Know the Way to San José"

My way to San Jose is usually 101 South, but tonight after a long fruitless day sitting around worrying and waiting by the telephone I found out there is more than one way to get to San Jose.

Dad,

the phone keeps ringing and I am wondering why you aren’t answering. It goes to voice mail for the third time and as I turn into your driveway and see your car gone, a pit opens up and I feel like I am falling ... I am falling.
Inside I don’t see much—the TV is on. The lights are on. You’re gone. I dial your cell again and am horrified as I hear it ring in the house. You don’t have your phone.

Your IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy) appointment is in 45 minutes and the only thing I can think of doing is sitting down and calling Danielle. I don’t really know what to say to her except that you’re gone. I feel responsible for your disappearance. The second call is to your Oncologist saying you won’t be attending your radiation appointment. They’re polite.

People start searching for you. I answer the phone a lot ... No, I don’t know. He wasn’t here when I arrived. No, he took his car. I am calling the police. They refer me to the Alameda County Sheriff because you live in a section of Hayward that is unincorporated and doesn’t have a police department. The sheriff takes a report and gives me his card. He doesn't even get out of his car.


It’s a big world. Where did you go?

Alex is the one who found you. Your credit card was charged $943.94 for some clothes in San Jose. You're in the parking lot of a nearby Denny’s. You’re dehydrated and keep saying it is really great that we bumped into each other in downtown Berkeley. We ask you where your car is and you shrug. You don’t know where your keys are either. We’re heading to the Emergency Room now in San Leandro to have you checked out. You’re angry and don’t trust us.

A Picture of Change

For the last 8 years George Walker Bush's photo has greeted people in the lobby of The Phillip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco. At exactly 9am Pacific Standard Time it was taken down to be replaced by a portrait of President Barack Obama.

Ironman

Dear Dad,

The chemo and radiation is affecting your brain. You keep forgetting things. But not like the normal stuff that I’ve gotten used to you forgetting, you know like when you try to remember the name of a movie director. You say What’s his name? Umm Jason help me out here?

That’s not what worries me now.

Last night we were watching Iron Man and today you don’t remember it. Later we’re watching it again for a second time. When I tell you that we watched this the night before, you shake your head. You look at me like you’re trying to remember and your eyes light up for a second and I think you have it, but then you go back to shaking your head. You don’t have it. The doctors say that this is fairly common in older patients that undergo treatment and also because of the location of the radiation treatments being close to your brain. The tough part is a radiation treatment a day, five days a week with only the weekends off. It is hard getting you to keep going. Yesterday when I said it was time to go, you got quiet and like a child whispered Can we just skip it today?

On your second chemo you get the drug Cisplatin, a small amount cloistered with liters of IV fluids to help the body deal with the toxicity of the event. The fluids drip all day as we sit in a room full of other cancer patients. Afterwards, I take you home and you want to watch a movie. You want to watch Iron Man because you haven’t seen it yet.