Mar 26 2012

Hey everyone. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’ve been a bit absent lately. Basically, my dad has angiosarcoma. It’s a really rare cancer of the blood vessels. A city the size of Pittsburgh sees two cases every ten years, roughly. It’s certainly terminal, while he had some chemotherapy a few days ago, we won’t know if it’s helped at all for another week or so, and if it works, it’ll give him another few weeks to months at best. It came on really fast: he felt some shortness of breath the first week of February, went into the hospital in week three, by week four he almost died from a blood vessel bursting due to weakness from the disease.

Anyway, you all have sent me tons of well-wishes and such over the last week, and it’s truly appreciated. It’s nice to know that I have support, as I try to support my family. I’m the oldest son, so that carries a lot of responsibilities, and you guys have helped me a lot.

However, if I can ask you for one more thing…

My dad turns 54 on Sunday. My aunt told my mom that for his birthday, she’s going to email everyone she knows, ask them to send him a birthday card, and she’s hoping to get 100. I think that’s a pretty awesome idea, but I also happen to know that while I’ve mentioned to my dad that ‘people on the internet I know send well-wishes,’ I think it’d be super awesome to blow my aunt out of the water and give my dad a zillion cards for his last birthday.

So yeah, if you have a few minutes this week, and you’re thinking of my father, send a birthday card to my house. Here’s the address:

note: Five years later, I’ve removed the address. I haven’t lived there in years, please don’t see this now and send mail to some random person kthx.

Oh yeah: My dad is also Steve. I’m not a junior because he has no middle name: his mother said they were too poor to give him one.

Additionally, I mean April 1. That’s his birthday. However, if you live far away and it’ll be a bit late, that’s perfectly fine, still send one. I think that ‘oh, this card came from so far away that it took some time’ is pretty awesome in its own way.

I really think this would be an awesome last gift to my dad. One of the worst things about being in the hospital is that you feel cut off from everything outside of that room, and while I’ve spent almost every minute of the last 8 days in there with him, keeping your spirits up helps the healing process quite a bit.

Thanks. <3 <3 <3