An Ode to My Parents

Today I filmed myself answering questions for an interview with a web news channel (more on that to come) and I had to answer the question: Who has been your biggest support throughout all of this?

The answer was easy:

Kevin, the guy at the McDonald's drive-thru who always puts extra fries at the bottom of the bag for me.

Just kidding.

If you know my parents, you know that they are A) the best parents and B) way cooler than yours.

So it should be no surprise at all how quickly they sprang into action when I told them that what I thought was a UTI was actually cancer.

I can't imagine what that feels like, to find out that your child, not to mention your youngest, has cancer. I will likely never have kids of my own so I may never know. And honestly, I hope none of you reading this ever find out. 

Before I dive into just how amazing my parents are, I need to acknowledge how fortunate I am to have supportive parents who love me as much as they do. I know this. And I'm grateful.

My mom came with me to every single appointment, treatment, and scan, with the only exception of a few in December when I had COVID. She made me eggs every single morning, and you better believe those eggs had a little blobby Cholula smily face dribbled onto them. She took me on random trips to Target just to get me out of the house when I was feeling particularly low in spirits. She sat with me during every treatment, which often took 5 or 6 hours from start to finish. She was my pharmacist, always keeping track of my medications and bringing them to me when it was time to take them. Like literally even in the middle of the night, she would set alarms every 3 hours and come upstairs to give me my medication so that I wouldn't wake up feeling nauseous. She washed my hair in the kitchen sink for me when I got home from the hospital because I hadn't bathed in weeks. She helped me shower when I still had a 20cm tumor living inside of me and I couldn't even lift my leg over the ledge of the bathtub.

My dad was the getaway driver I never asked for. He drove hours from Green Bay to Chicago and sometimes turned the car right back around for another 4 hour trek in the driver's seat. He drove through the night once when I had a particularly disgusting incision mishap and we decided to drive the 4 hours back to Green Bay rather than wait the 8 hours in the ER in Chicago. He played ping pong with me in the basement to keep me from slowly going insane without my friends around. He even sat through episode after episode of Bachelor in Paradise (and I think he secretly liked it) because it was something I watched virtually with my friends and he knew that was important to me. He made me ice cream every night and even though it was just vanilla ice cream with Hershey's syrup it somehow was the best ice cream in the world. When I was recovering from surgery I had drug-induced cheese cravings an hour after going to bed and he would bring a bowl of sliced cheese for me and we would talk about random things like what I should name my car or the chemicals he uses to balance the pH levels of the hot tub. 

They took care of Murphy when I couldn't even let him sit on my lap. They took me to Door County to pick out pumpkins and gourds that looked like geese and although we didn't end up carving them, they looked cute on the front porch. 

My favorite part of every day was 6pm when Jeopardy was on and we would shout out the answers if we knew them, totally impressed whenever someone got the answer right. 

I can't discount my sister Megan, who, despite feeling a helpless living 3 hours away, set up a GoFundMe while I was incapacitated in the hospital, and raised over $25,000. (That GoFundMe is still live.) She started a CaringBridge and kept it updated so I didn't have to worry about constantly telling people how I'm doing, so I could just focus on healing. She helped me write thank you cards to send to people who'd sent me donations and gifts when I was first diagnosed and came to sit with me in the chemo ward on my birthday. She made stupid TikToks with me and sent a literal flock of flamingos to our house (although it's actually called a "flamboyance" of flamingos) the week I started chemo to wish me luck and make me feel less worried about it. She also begrudgingly met the Backstreet Boys with me in July. What a trooper.

I hate this phrase, so very much, but I am really blessed (#blezzed) to have these people in my life. Not only in my life, but as my family. I always knew my family was amazing, after having grown up knowing them my whole life, but they really showed up for me when I needed them the most, and I can never repay them for that. (Although taking your sister to meet the Backstreet Boys comes pretty close.)

I know you're reading this, and I know you're crying, Dad. And now everybody knows what a sap you are. (Also I love you. You too, Mom.)