It all started November 23rd

So I have taken a break from the blog because most of what I needed to blog about, I couldn't really express at the time. So I am going to try to play catch up! These past few months have been stressful and full of emotions. As you all know, it has been quite the year for us. All starting with our daughter Lyla's diagnosis, carrying her to 32 weeks, and then having to say goodbye. Of course just a short while after that we got the joy of finding out we were expecting our Rainbow, another girl.
In the midst of the year wrapping up and the holidays approaching, Adam and I were talking about how much we were ready for a new year. 2011 had not been good to us and we were ready to see what 2012 had in store. Thankfully, we had Harlow's due date on the calendar as a reminder that 2012 was going to be a good one.
Because our family's are miles apart... Adam's here in Alabama, and mine in California, we alternate holidays. One year its Thanksgiving here, Christmas in CA, and the next year vice versa. This year, Christmas was set to be here in Alabama, so for Thanksgiving we boarded our flight to head out west. For the past week or so my dad had had this awful headache that just didn't seem to go away. When Adam and I arrived home the day before Thanksgiving, we were shocked to hear my dad had been in bed all day, and was in bed all the day before as well. Anyone who knows my dad, knows that he is never one to lounge around, let alone actually stay in bed when he's sick or not feeling good. It is just not in his character at all, so to hear he actually had not gotten out of bed for 2 days was so weird to hear and to imagine. After arriving home and checking on him, Adam, myself and my sister urged my mom to try to persuade him to go to the Doctor. We knew something had to be wrong and we wanted to get him feeling better before our annual Thanksgiving feast with all the family the next day. We hosted Thanksgiving every year and my dad had to prepare his masterpiece turkey like he does every year and how would he do that if he couldn't get out of bed?
After much persuasion, he agreed to go to the doctor. He attempted to sit up and get dressed and just couldn't do it. He felt incredibly nauseous and dizzy, and his head was in excruciating pain. We ended up having to call 911 to get an ambulance to come and get him to the hospital. Within 30 min my dad was on his way to the hospital and my mom followed behind them. Adam, my sister Michelle and me stayed behind at the house and went to get pizza for dinner with the kids, relying on my mom to give us updates about what was going on with my dad.
All through the evening we got updates that he was in the ER and waiting.... they were ordering a chest x-ray as part of normal protocol as well as an MRI later on because of the pain in his head. Finally, around 9pm my mom came home and started crying while chopping vegetables to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Me and Michelle alarmingly ask what's wrong and whats going on and my sister sends the kids up stairs. Finally, she tells us the chest x-ray came back and they found a grapefruit sized mass in his lung... he has lung cancer.
Immediately we're just kind of shocked because we weren't expecting that. He went in because of a massive headache... no chest pain or breathing problems, so to learn they found lung cancer surprised us. Although shocked, we weren't crying... mostly I think because we felt like it was so treatable and we knew something could be done about it...right? My mom said she was going back about an hour later because he was getting an MRI and the results would be in shortly. We had no clue what any of it meant but me and my sister were thinking he had some sort of a pinched nerve-- that was surely what was causing the discomfort in his head. Obviously dad having lung cancer had nothing to do with that. We were thinking 'let's get dad's head feeling better so he can come home for his favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, and then we will deal with this lung cancer.' This random trip to the hospital  because of head pain was probably just a lucky way for us to also catch this lung cancer!
Nothing prepared us for what my mom would later come home and tell us. She got home around midnight and we all sat on the floor in the living room. The MRI came back and showed cancer lesions all throughout his brain. He had stage 4 lung cancer that had metastasized to the brain, causing tumors and swelling, which was causing all the pain he was in. I can't even begin to describe the tears and questioning that followed my mom telling us this. Our dad... had cancer... and it had spread to all over his brain. We couldn't believe what we were hearing.