I won't be here for at least the next five days. I received word this morning that my last surviving brother finally lost his battle with the brain tumor that had been killing him slowly over the past year. Some of my dear Fu friends already know of his struggle but I have chosen not to share more until now.
He collapsed at work in March of last year with what was first believed to be a stroke, but was later found to be a fairly sizable tumor of a particularly nasty variety, and underwent surgery to remove it immediately. The operating surgeons claimed at first to have gotten it all but later confirmed they had not; and he spent much of last year undergoing very heavy chemo, which was ultimately found to have had little effect earlier this year. Not only had the original tumor mostly grown back, it began to spawn other tumors. The last few months, he had been receving infusion treatments, which were a last-ditch effort that only held the tumors back for a short time, but which stopped being effective early this month. Since then it has been merely a matter of time.
My deepest thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this. I will be back soon.
Troy aka The Terminal Bachelor
This is an update. Dan's funeral was yesterday. The minister who conducted it was also the man who baptized him and he did a fine job. Along with our family many of the men he worked with for years and two of them spoke very well about him. I spoke briefly about his time in a rock band and how he wrote and recorded songs with them and how proud I was the few times I got to see him play live. It was a very nice service and today it is good to know that after a year of suffering, he is finally laid to rest and at peace.