Expect the unexpected

Last Tuesday I took dad In for his cancer dr appointment. They decided his blood was low enough that he needed blood but they were also concerned because his potassium was too high. Appearantly if your potassium is too high you can go into cardiac arrest. They almost immediately started him on something to bring his potassium down and decided to give him 2 more units of blood. They also ordered a scan on his intestines since they never found active bleeding in his stomach or colon. They also ordered a bone marrow scan to see if he is even producing blood anymore. They asked him if he wouldn't mind being admitted so they could keep an eye on his potassium overnight and they would just give him the transfusions then. He agreed to be admitted so what started as a routine visit turned into a hospital stay.

While dad was in the hospital they did the scan on him. He describes it as torture. You have to lay on your back for an hour and a half while it scans you and you're not allowed to move. His has a tumor on his spine so laying still for that long on his back doesn't really work. Luckily they did let him go home wednesday though.

Thursday was back to "normal". I took him to radiation and he was in a good mood. While we were there his best friend from longview called about the birthday party i planned for dad on Saturday. Dad didn't know in invited him. He started to tear up when I told him. I asked him what was wrong and he said he was just thinking about all the people he was going to miss...I was goad that me obviating Harry made him happy and finally excited about his birthday. We planned a big cookout with as many people as we could think of and a brisket and lots of other cookout goodies. Thursday was a good day.

Friday my boss really needed me at the office so my brother had to take him to his cancer dr appointment. I had to do some presentations for some guests we had in the office then in grabbed lunch for everyone. When I went back to my office and checked my cell phone I had two texts from Kyle. He said they were admitting dad back into the hospital. He needed blood again and his blood pressure was really low and he was running a temperature off and on so they were worried about infection. I started making calls to everyone to tell them the party was off and dad was being put back in the hospital (on top of a very frustrating day at work in which I worked hard to book several classes that were cancelled within a few hours of their scheduling). It was a hard, frustrating day. I cried to Craig when I got home. I didn't want dad to spend what might be his last birthday in the hospital.

Since we had already seasoned the brisket we cooked it as scheduled Saturday. I invited nose of my lovely friends over to help us eat it. It was great to see them. Sunday was dads birthday. I got up early and went grocery shopping to bake him his cake of choice, pineapple upside down. Too soon after it was done baking I headed up to the hospital to spend a couple hours with dad. Kyle and I gave him lots of presents and I think he enjoyed his bday as much as you can while you're in the hospital.

Yesterday was my birthday. Dad was supposed to get out of the hospital but instead they redid his "torture" scan. He was moving too much for them to get a good read last time. They pushed the bone marrow test off another day. They also decided he needed more blood again. Its amazing to me how much blood a person can lose without bleeding.

This afternoon dad called me. He was barely coherent. I could tell they did the bone marrow test. All I could make out was that the dr wanted to talk to me. He eventually put the dr on the phone. I couldn't understand him much better between my cell phone and his accent. He said he wanted to talk to me either this afternoon before 5 or tomorrow morning. I told him this afternoon would be better and I scheduled to come see him at 3:30. He wanted to talk to me, and my dad, about his long term care. I wasn't sure what that meant but ifigired if a dr was calling me instead of just talking to dad, it couldn't be good. I tried to wrap things up at the office without working myself into a panic attack.

This is what I learned from the dr: dads caner has spread extensively. Theres a large mass in his left lung. Theres a tumor on his 6th rib, but it's spread to other ribs. Its in his liver. Theres are other nodules on his body that they believe are also cancerous, but won't know without doing a biopsy. His protien is about 30% of what it should be. They think the cancer might be robbing him of the nutrition from what little food he does eat. His white blood cell count is high and he's running a lot of fever, but they cant find any infection. Both could be due to the cancer. He could also have some other sort of cancer floating around in his blood that they haven't identified. They aren't sure. They also did not find any bleeding in his intestines (which is good because it means they don't have to do surgery, but bad because we have no explanation for the blood loss).

It all comes down to this: he's too weak to do chemotherapy. At this point we have two options; he can go home and rest up and when's strong enough they will do chemotherapy or we enlist the help of hospice and make him as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. The dr says hospice is only for terminally I'll people who arent expected to make it longer than 6 months or so. They've told us to start considering it.

My brother made it up to the hospital after the dr left. I went over everything with him. He broke down. It's still completely incomprehensible to me. I really can't picture life without my dad there.

Craig came up to the hospital too and we left together for dinner. During the drive Craig was really struggling to say something to me. He finally asked "did you want your dad to be involved in our wedding whenever we get married?" Then I lost it. All I could say was yea. He asked "do we need to move that up? Fastrack it?" I told him no. As much as it breaks my heart because my dad might not be able to walk me down the aisle, I don't want to jump into marriage because my dad is dying. He said it was something he was thinking about today, he didn't want to upset me. I told him no, I know. Thats just one of my more sensitive subjects.

So thats where we are. No decisions made. One day at a time.

I need some chocolate milk...