Where Everybody Knows Your Name

June 5th, 2025.

"You have cancer."

The room was as sterile as the doctor's delivery to my 83-year-old father.

At that moment, I searched desperately for something—anything—to look at besides the doctor's face. Some distraction to help me hide the welling in my eyes. Time seemed to slow as those three words hung in the air, and I felt myself splitting in two: the adult child trying to process medical information, and the kid who just wanted to protect his dad from everything bad in the world. Behind the doctor, a medical student stood frozen—maybe hearing those words delivered to a real person for the first time. I envied that distance.

Right then, I decided I would do everything I could to protect my dad, even if it meant shrinking myself down—full Rick Moranis style—to fight the cancer myself. Nothing was off the table.

The Quiet Car Ride Home

My father had expected it. A series of doctor's appointments—more than any of his kids knew about—had given him time to work through potential diagnoses. Years of medical maladies we'd written off as "aging parent stuff" suddenly crystallized into something else entirely. In retrospect, the signs were as clear as the guilt. Maybe we should've been paying more attention.

The car ride home was quiet. Once there, we had our first chance to deliver the word "cancer" ourselves—my mother listening from her place on the couch as she received the news that would mark one of the harder moments in nearly 60 years of marriage.

Agent Orange's Long Shadow

Being doused in Agent Orange had finally caught up with my father. Decades after Vietnam, the chemicals they sprayed to strip jungle foliage were now stripping away his health. As we processed those words, I realized I was now the age my father had been when he retired. A war we had no business being in—one directed by men who knew they'd never have to send their own sons into that jungle. That's the shitty part about war: it doesn't end when the guns go quiet. Decades later, it still takes, still punishes those who had the least say in starting it—'rich old men protecting their property by sending middle-class and lower-class young men off to die.'

I found dark irony in living not too far from one of the plants where they manufactured the chemical that would eventually wreak havoc on my father's body. Shut down. Destitute. Abandoned. The city feels a lot like navigating the VA system would prove to be.

Becoming the Parent

The next few weeks brought a new reality. The chemo schedule alone was its own special brand of hell: 18 days on, 15 days off for three weeks, then off by one, cycling for 32 cycles, but changing after the third cycle into four-week periods. An incomprehensible maze.

I'd started a new job just three weeks before the diagnosis. The learning curve that should have had my full attention - figuring out who had authority to approve what, which names to include on emails - became background noise to the real crisis. I transformed from child to parent, and I needed to clear my mental load for what mattered. I made the decision to return to my previous job—not for comfort, but for capacity. Every bit of energy I spent decoding a new workplace was energy I couldn't spend on my father. 

A week into this new routine—45-minute drives each way to appointments, watching my father age in dog years—my phone buzzed. Former coworkers in our group chat, each of us thumb-typing between hospital parking lots and pharmacy lines, comparing notes on the spectacular shitshow of role reversal. We'd started calling it "raising parents." That peculiar role reversal where suddenly you're the one making decisions, asking the hard questions, protecting them from the harsh realities they once shielded you from. The same people who once decided your bedtime now arguing about taking their pills like belligerent teenagers. 

Our troubles really were all the same.

The 101 Fever Threshold

I traveled to see my dad for his lab results follow-up. My intention had been simple: accompany him to one appointment. That extended to staying for the first chemo treatment two weeks later, then stretched into four weeks total. I'm so glad I stayed.

At 11:55 on a Monday evening, I found myself playing paramedic, trying to determine if a 101-degree fever was significantly above the 100.5 threshold the doctors had set for "get to the ER immediately." On one side: the clinical documentation. On the other: my father operating at 5% capacity, the other 95% left behind in sweat-soaked sheets.

I made the call. Loaded him into the car for the 45-minute drive to the cancer center's emergency room. We navigated the dark two-lane country road both my parents struggle with at night. My vision wasn't watching much past the headlights, but my mind was already at the ER.

I watched his frustration mount seeing the packed waiting room, then relief wash over his face as I spoke the magic words to triage: "Started chemo. 101 fever."

Sepsis scores be damned, I'd just delivered a potentially ticking timebomb. They knew it. My father, on the other hand, just wanted to feel better. A plan—coming together.

They fast-tracked him through those automatic doors, and I finally felt relief. I knew he was getting help.

* * *

Sitting next to those "What to Do When You're Grieving" posters outside the ICU, I felt something shift.

Life is fucking messy. There is no playbook. After all, this is the first time any of us have done it.

My father's face had shown such relief when those automatic doors opened. He knew he was somewhere safe, somewhere they understood what he needed.

Sitting there, I realized that's all any of us want when life goes sideways—to be somewhere the people understand what's happening, what we need, how to help. For my father, it was those automatic doors and the triage nurse who knew exactly what '101 fever' meant. For me, it was simpler: I just needed to be able to show up.

Because at the end of the day, when your parent is fighting cancer caused by a war that ended before you were born, when you're driving roads they can no longer navigate, when you're making decisions you never wanted to make—sometimes wisdom means choosing the path that lets you show up, again and again, for as long as it takes.