Sausage Saves Lives

202!  From 1200 to 300 to 202! 

What do these numbers mean?  Honestly, I couldn't even begin to explain them to you but I know they are good news.  202 is my Father's new PSA number.  PSA stands for Prostate-specific antigen.  I just looked that up.  Despite reading the description repeatedly the only thing I can explain to you with any certainty is that the lower your number the better your chances.  Kind of like golf, only involving life or death and not silly pants and white patent leather belts.

Approximately two months ago I made an emergency return trip to Maine when my Father's PSA was 1200, his blood pressure low with a rapid pulse.  At the time I was concerned this would be my last trip to Maine to see my Father.  As it turns out my Sister had been slowly poisoning our beloved Patriarch.  She claims it was not intentional but her defense is filled with holes. 

A week prior to the "accidental" poisoning, my Nana suffered a stroke at her home in New Jersey and my Mother flew down to take care of her.  Nana's doing well now, thanks for asking.  Truth is she's so cantankerous she'll probably outlive us all.  While my Mother was away my Sister volunteered to cook dinners for my Father.  He's not an invalid but after forty years of having my Mom wait on him hand and foot I'm not sure he knows where the kitchen is. 

Her menu consisted of extra spicy italian sausage and... well, that was just about it.  Double helpings of extra spicy italian sausage.  My Dad, never being one to worry about calories or saturated fats, gobbled these meals down.  With gusto.  Trust me on this.  G-U-S-T-O.  Little did my Father know he had a bleeding ulcer.  I'm not quite certain how my Sister recognized this developing weakness in the Old Man but clearly she did and she tried to capitalize on it. 

So it was with great concern that I flew home, not realizing my Sister's assassination plot had been thwarted by the diligent nurses at Cancer Care.  In my mind I'm imagining my Sister twirling her pencil thin mustache - this is not an exaggeration, she's Italian so she has a pencil thin mustache - and angrily stomping around some old railroad tracks.  We would soon find out that he wasn't the only one in the family with cancer. 

Since stepping off the plane I have lived with my folks for a solid two months.  I'm no longer worried about a final visit to Maine to see my Father as I am now desperate to leave.  We still eat sausage on a semi-regular basis, what can I tell you, in my family it's practically a food group.  Plus sausage helped save my life.  Had it not been for my Sister's failed attempt on my Father's life I never would have been talked into seeing a doctor (I go every ten years whether I need it or not), never would have discovered the Hodgkin's Lymphoma and who knows when I would have gotten treatment. 

I'm still trying to figure out how my Sister gave me cancer.