My dad, Ozzy Osborne
June 5, 2007
Early this year, we learned that dad had developed lung cancer. My brother emailed me with this: good news/bad news: Good—pops don't need an operation. Bad—its malignant. Brother A (the long-haired one), he's such an asshole too. Wow. Cancer. Seems ironic since I read about cancer almost everyday, I edit scientists' work (AACR, the most prestigious by far…), try and make sure that other scientists can understand what one geek is trying to communicate to the other geek, I imagined somehow that I and everyone I know would have been blessed, via osmosis or repetitive exposure, to some form of immunity from cancer, plus the fact that long-haired brother A is a nurse! Shouldn't we have gained some sort of protection from disease?! Well, I guess reading too many comic books can do that to you—start thinking that the normal laws of physics and reality no longer apply to you—too many comic books or seeing the Matrix 15 bajillion times might warp you (if you see someone walking with both hands clasped behind his back, ala-Morpheus, that's probably me!). All I need now is one of those cool trench coats… No one was too surprised though, my dad lived it up back in his day, like a real-life Marlboro man, except that he smoked HOPE (nope, hindi sya ngongo, di rin sya karpintero, and I have no idea how HOPE got linked with those two adjectives?!). HOPE was a menthol cigarette (with the white filters), the only thing I got worried about back then was the possibility that my dad would become a pokpok… yes, I was strange even as a kid… no, my dad never wore lipstick.
Before they left for the U.S., my dad quit smoking. This was around the same time when he retired (wala na raw sya pambili yosi eh!), never thought that day would come (his retiring or his giving up smokes? Both.). The smell of cigarettes wafting from his fingers was imprinted on my brain. But he quit one day, and the way I remember it, he got pneumonia the next. Heheh! How's that for a fly in your Chardonnay?! Alanis Morissette can kiss my ass! After that scare, he recovered pretty nicely. Swore off cigarettes, although I sometimes caught him breathing in heavily whenever one of his smoking friends came over to the house, or whenever a tricycle passed by. Then, when they were finally in the states, the land of milk and money, he had a heart attack. Boom! Triple-bypass heart surgery, here we come! (am-booo-lan-syaaaa!!!)
It's a good thing he got diagnosed in the states though, I'm afraid that had he been hospitalized here, he might have been sent home and given a prescription for Advil. Not to mention that an ambulance might take 2 hours to get you to the nearest hospital. I wasn't too worried though. It was just triple-bypass heart surgery! At about the same time, David Letterman had just had quadruple-bypass heart surgery! And he was still cracking jokes after a couple of months!
So I thought, no worries, my dad, masamong damo yun, he don't give in too easily! And the stories he told about being half-conscious when they operated on him, man, that's the stuff of legends between me and my nieces—open-heart surgery can't have been pretty?! Cracking your chest open and having someone rearrange your internal organs can do some strange things to a man!! All it did was mellow my dad. Just a tad. Although, I did miss him calling me "damuho ka!" by this time. I sometimes wish I could do something or say something just to see if I can still set him off? I wonder what he'd do if I told him that I was gay (I'm not, by the way). I'm assuming that a whole new line of expletives would have to be invented for that occasion (really, I'm not gay).
And now lung carcinoma. I don't have to do too much research to know that the chances for recovery are slim. They can't operate on him, so they blasted dad with radiation. To my relief, the hospitals in Illinois were out of gamma-radiation at the time. I would have hated to piss off my dad then if he became the Incredible Hulk! (besides, green doesn't really do much for him fashion-wise). The only side-effect was that he lost most of his hair (eyebrows too!), so he just shaved the rest of it off! Those of you who know me might have thought that male pattern baldness runs in my family. Well, it doesn't! Sometimes it skips a generation. Sometimes it lands on me. Now, we're both chrome-domes! Now I can say, yes, I got it from my father's side!
The one time I ever worried about my dad was when we recently spoke on the phone, he was afraid that being bald made him look hideous, and I told him that it just takes a little getting used to, to which he replied "kita ko nga yung picture mo na kalbo ka eh, mas pogi ka pala sa akin eh!"—whoa, call 911, my dad really is sick if he starts admitting that I'm the good-looking one in the family. Although, I really am. Really.
But what surprises me and brother B is how laid back our father is about the whole deal. Like I said before, my dad is one ornery sonnavabitch who doesn't take much crap from anyone or any thing. We half-expected him to complain about being sick, to complain about the doctors treating him—and if he got better—to complain about having to recover, to complain about the medicine and the hospital costs, et cetera, et cetera… but no. Apparently, he's taking it all in stride. Like he's seen it all before. Dare I say, with a Zen-like tranquility. I don't know what's going on inside that little bald head of his, I intend to ask him next time we speak on the phone. Or maybe when he comes back home, he says he's coming home soon.
