Doctor Goodman, the lung specialist, left us alone in the room for a minute, so I snuck a peak at the computer before he came back. It was the wrong thing to do because I saw that it was metastatic lung cancer and totally lost it, but couldn’t say anything to Gator because I had no idea what exactly that meant! I had done some reading on the internet so I knew enough for it to scare the crap out of me but not enough to explain anything! It was so devastating! I just hugged him crying, and he said; “It’s going to be alright”…I said; “No, it isn’t!” and just kept hugging him….Dr. Goodman sent us to see the oncologist.

Gator’s daughter came to Seattle with us to hear the diagnosis and the prognosis which was pretty horrible. The oncologist “Dr. Grim” (what a name for an oncologist!) told us that “unfortunately most people with this type of cancer only live for about a year”. What a nightmare! I think the three of us walked around in a kind of a trance for the rest of the day.