where to begin..

Life's never quite what you expect.

Ten years ago I had such great goals.. go to college, make my parents proud, meet an amazingg guy, and of course find some unbelievable dream job. I'm 23 now and well, I went to college.

How, you ask, did life get so off track? My amazing/unbelievable/supportive dad was diagnosed with a terminal disease. It's been almost four years since he was diagnosed, but this disease, Frontotemporal degeneration, has been taking him away from me slowly over the past ten years. Ten years that a young girl really needs a good dad. 

And mine, he was the best. He was calm and caring, loving and protective, understanding and fair. He was 6 foot 4 and 250 pounds of pure teddy bear.. to me and the ones he loved at least... 
There's this great story my sister, Jen, tells when she was a teenager and a boy came to see her. Dad answered the door and stood right in the doorway asking the boy what he wanted. When he responded, "Is Jen here?" dad told him yes and closed the door in his face.

Not exactly impolite, but certainly protective of his two girls. That's just how my dad always was.

Unfortunately, this disease has made him just a ghost of who he used to be. The sparkle in his eyes is now vacant, the magnetism in his smile is nothing but memory, and there is no longer a hint of his gregarious personality.

The big question of course, is why? There is some interesting info on ftd here

My dad, got the disease through several concussions when he was in high school. Having graduated in 1972,  we don't have great record of all of them, but there are three known concussions.

Anyway.. the point of all this... there is one, I promise.. is to write down a few things that now may make me want to pull out every strand of beautiful hair I've inherited from my fathers gene's, because one day I will laugh. I'm sure of it... I think. Bare with me, I'm not exactly a writer, but I've got some interesting stories to tell. 

My life is messy, but maybe one day someone will be able to read about how my family survived this difficult situation and I'll help just one person.