Course of Action

Leaving home Thanksgiving was really hard to do, but we knew we would be back if we had to, after my dad met with an oncologist and we found out more information about what he was just diagnosed with. My dad conference called me and my sister so our whole family was on the line together. He was so nervous on the phone and clearly didn't know what to say to us, or rather how to say to us what the Doctor had said. Long story short... the doctor explained that the type of cancer he had was stage 4 and was very aggressive and had spread to his brain. As of then, the cancer was in his lung and in his brain. The conversation with my dad was confusing and there was a lot of reading between the lines which me and my sister figured out together on the phone privately right after we hung up with my dad. What was really going on, but not being said, was that his cancer was very aggressive and would not be cured at all, even with treatment. He was dying of this and what it came down to was doing treatment... not to get better... but to prolong his life and give him time. How much treatment, how long of doing treatment? We didn't know and we had a lot of questions.
The plan was for him to start full cranial radiation the following week. And after radiation treatments, he would then start chemo. Chemo doesn't work on the cancer in the brain, because the brain naturally protects itself. So the radiation was to treat the cancer in the brain (hopefully shrink all the tumors and lesions, therefore, reduce the swelling), and then after that, he would start chemo, to treat the cancer in the lung.
My dad then asked that we all come home for Christmas so we can be together and that he really wanted us to take the extra trip home for Christmas. Of course we were going to and we made arrangements immediately. Later that night, me and my sister cried on the phone together about knowing what dad was really telling us and we couldn't bare the thought that it was my dad's last Christmas. It still seemed so unreal to us.