Stepping away from the build stuff..
On Friday, June 16th at 4:53AM my dad, Michael Seal II, took his last breath. It has been a long, long road and fight with cancer, which I will explain in this post.
He was diagnosed with glioblastoma in June of 2020 after we had talked to him about his speech beginning to slur and at times be unrecognizable. They found the large tumor almost immediately upon x-ray. The doctor explained this disease to us and him, and basically said to eat all the bacon, ham and eggs you can "cause you've got maybe a month." We were shocked, distraught, confused, and most of all, lost. Those feelings materialized into a post on Facebook, which led to someone seeing it and reaching out with contact info for a doctor in Wisconsin. I may also add, the doctor here in Virginia told us there was zero fix for this. Well, this doctor in Wisconsin is supposedly one of few doctors in the world who operates on this disease. He motioned us to get there as soon as humanly possible, his team working out the details over the weekend when they were off the clock, it was amazing the leg work into this. We took the soonest flight out and rented the hotel. Its still June at this point. We had to drive back, as brain surgery does not take well to altitude. The doctor in Wisconsin states he was confident that he removed 98-99% of the tumor, as this is a exceedingly difficult cancer to remove. He states that we need to immediately start chemo and radiation. To cut this story short, we went from a few weeks to live to an undefined amount of time. This disease has very little data, and the longevity post surgery has nearly zero data, and his disease always comes back, it will never go away, but it wont show until the very end. We ended up having three years and three days since his initial diagnosis. It had been very tough, he lost his ability to cognitively speak, write or even perform most tasks, eventually lost his ability to cognitively understand. The last time I got any response out of him was a week before he passed, the 24 Hour De Lemans was on and I pulled his bed in view of the TV, and explained to him that Hendrick was in the race for the first time in decades, representing NASCAR, and said "aint that cool?" He nodded.
Here in Williamsburg, VA there is a place called Hospice House. It is filled with the most kind staff, they are helpful, energetic, and emotionally responsive. And this one is unique, it is free of cost, and an absolutely beautiful establishment. I will never forget their hospitality and grace. This allowed him to have 100%, around the clock attention, and to allow us to have a place to go, that did not feel like a hospital, and be with him for his final days.
