i am sad, today

and so there are ups, and there are downs. smiling one day, crying into the night the next, we finish off cycles of life just like breath, or the tides of the ocean under the moon.... in and out, up and down, left and right. and no matter how strong we can be there is always room for desperation, to seep through cracks.
i know he said he will be strong, but facing one's mortality is never an easy walk to stride. it's not that i'm scared of his death, or that i don't realize permanence is just a man-made word to make us feel better about things slipping through our fingers. i want to find a way to shield him from the pain he is about to undertake; the soreness and swelling at the site of the ion beam to damage the dna in his cells, the ulcerations and the bleeding... it's his throat. all of this will happen in his throat, and there is a chance that if it swells too much, he won't be able to breathe. and then, the chemo... symptoms including but not limited to loss of memory and hair, depression of the immune system to the point of the inability to fight off a cold, depression of appetite, hemorrhage, vomiting, diarrhea, and anemia...
the man is 84 years old. if the cancer won't kill him, those side effects will, and all i want to do is take the drugs for him so he won't have to go through all of that.
my grandfather, the hero. the man that has been standing by me for longer than i can remember, the man who is about to lose his soft white hair, and maybe the ability to recognize his only granddaughter...
is there a treatment for the people who have to watch the ones they love go through this? or maybe one that takes all the pain away inside me, for not being able to do anything about it?
i am sad today, and all these things are why.

k.