day. During my Dad’s treatments the phone calls slowly stopped, and the emails began to dwindle. Cancer was slowly forever changing my relationship with my Dad, and I didn’t like it. I can remember visiting him during his treatments, and with each visit my Dad would change. Traditional Italian Sunday dinners quickly became a thing of the past as my Dad lost the ability to eat and was surviving on a feeding tube. Our entire family learned how to modify our dining schedule as my Dad began to eat solely from a peg tube. We quickly held onto the hope that once the radiation ceased and with some therapy he could eat again.

My Dad successfully completed treatments in March 2009, and about 3 months later his peg tubewas removed. He was eating orally again, but not like before. His saliva was a thing of the past; he carried a water bottle around constantly, and was always choking. Slowly, he began to recover, but some foods, like steak, were a thing of the past. As my Dad and our family began to recover more than ever, my Dad was my real life super hero.

Then in what seemed like out of the blue to me, in March of 2012 my Dad was hospitalized for pneumonia. We quickly learned my Dad was aspirating his food into his lungs and would need to have his peg tube reinserted. This news was a dramatic blow to our family, we felt like the cancer was beat and how could this happen.