End Game

Over the last week, Dad's been getting worse. He started slipping on Father's Day, when he asked me why I was coming over so early - at 5PM. It progressed through non sequitors - telling Mom that the stereo remote also controls the pump to empty the washbasin - on to conviction that he had to go somewhere to claiming that he had to go home (he WOULD NOT believe us when we told him he was home) to not recognizing us to where he is today: in a coma.

This is, I'm told, typical of this kind of situation - going on a trip is how some people frame their coming death, and the coma is, frankly, a blessing for him and for us.

But he's still dying by inches, and there's nothing I can do.

Now What?

According to Dr Cancer Doctor, if (IF, keep this in mind) Dad's kidneys continue deteriorating, he has two or three weeks. Except she hasn't done a creatinin (sp?) test in a week, since she took him the Metformin. So how the hell do we know his kidneys are actually shutting down? We don't. We won't until we get the results back from the blood draw Dr Cancer Doctor authorized. So. He's either dying sooner or later. It's the 'ifs' that are driving me mad.

I give up

Hauled my ass out of bed at waaaay to fucking early o'clock this morning to see the doc. She confirmed my suspicions: Not only are my sinuses infected, my back is torn to shit, too. Stress turns me into SUCH a fucking klutz! So, I have painkillers and antibiotics and muscle relaxants, along with strict orders to stay the fuck in bed for a couple of days. Luckily, SisterB is home for a few days, and she can stay with mom and dad. Fun times!

Mom is putting off the Hospice discussion - she's trying to work up the nerve to broach the subject with dad. Who, btw, is looking 100% better today than yesterday. He was actually trimming junipers when I got home! he also ate a whole cup of yogurt - might not seem like a lot, but it's more than he's eaten in a good long while.

The gods have no fucking sense of proportion

Dad didn't get out of his (outpatient) blood transfusion until midnight. We got him up the stairs, got our books together, and headed to Meijer to grab some food on the Bridge card. Get checked out, and the self scanner machine spits out a receipt for a bout double what our actual order was. The math worked, the time stamp was plausible... Long story short, I got a leeetle bit bitchy at the clerk. When I apologized after checking the balance on our card, she just told me, "Girl, I didn't pay you no mind." We're late night regulars at that particular store, to the point where this clerk comments if she sees us during the day. So very, very glad she wasn't offended.

We get home, hauling our crap up the stairs, and find that grandma's front door is wide open. Had to wake her up to make sure everything was okay. It was. Yay.

So now, it's ass early and we have to go get dad down the steps again because heaven forefend they scedule a decent amount of time between transfusions... The only silver lining in thie particular cloud is that my parents have a memory foam mattress topper. I might actually get some sleep.

You know you're having a bad week when...

You start bawling in front of the UPS guy when he asks how your dad is doing. The UPS guy who works my parents route is great. He's one of the coolest guys I know. And while I wouldn't call him a family friend, exactly, he's cool. And he asked how Dad is, and I started crying. I fucking hate cancer. HATE it.

ETA: Dad's in the hospital AGAIN - outpatient for more blood and platelets. They're not going to look at the bladder infection until after he's through the course of levaquin. So, fun!

This is why I love the internet

I just had a brain flash - what if Dad's reaction last night was a rejection of the blood transfusion he got for low white cell count? I did teh googles, and no, it wasn't. Yay!

If only I'd done teh googles when Hubby couldn't string two words together (migraine aura), it would have saved us a trip to the ER!

It's a minefield out there

After Dad finished dry heaving, and after the 'if it gets worse, I don't care what you want, I'm dragging your ass to the ER' conversation (Dad and I are a lot alike - we both sometimes need a kick in the arse to do what needs done), Mom and I played a very relaxing game of Scrabble - relaxing because I won by something like 100 points). I could feel a tension headache lurking in my neck on the drive over, but figured helping the trees grow and getting my arse kicked at Scrabble would help relax me. HA! HA, I say!

So I was a pretty unhappy camper when Mom asked me to go shopping for her and gave me enough money for my xanax and firornal. Target andMeijer were both filled with screeching kids, team member radios squawking, the whole nine yards. To add insult to injury, my blood sugar crashed BIG TIME in the checkout line. Happy fun times! I got some McD's, went home, tried to play some more Scrabble (had to concede when I got something like my fifth round of NO FUCKING VOWELS!). The 'migraine' was so bad that trying to watch numb3rs literally amde me sick. The flickering... Have been alternating fiornal and vikes for a few hours, that's taken the edge off.

I think I'm going to throw up

Literally. Dad's not taking the levaquin so well. Or the levaquin's not taking well to some of the other crap in his system - whichever, he slept until almost five, and has been dry heaving since then, with a hellish nosebleed. We're thinking about bundling him up and dragging him to the ER.

Some days you're the pigeon...

And today, I'm the statue. Found out day before yesterday that a good SCA friend passed - colon cancer. And today i find out that dad has an infection and low white cell count. He's getting ready for a trandfusion now. Fun.

Tuesday Update

Dad's been having a lot of weakness/tiredness issues lately. Since he breezed through chemo the last time, we were all kinda terrified that he was either having a bad reaction to the chemo (indicative of a poor prognosis) or the brain tumor were expanding (see previous). He had a regular appointment with the oncologist today, and it turns out he has anemia. Praise Maude! Okay, not so much, because he has to get up arse early to get a blood transfusion tomorrow, but anemia can be fixed. Everything else seems okay, even perpetually gloomy 'if you really think you need treatment' Cancer Doctor Lady seemed pleased, and he gets another round of chemo next week. Remission is looking ever more possible.

Really good news!

Parents went to the oncologist yesterday, and all his visible tumors have shrunk, one from 5 com to 1.5. The chemo/radiation worked! If the next couple of courses work, remission is a possibility. Small cell isn't curable - but the longer he's around, the better. I'm very, very happy at this news.

Good News?

The 'rents visited an oncologist in Holland to get a second opinion, and were told that not only is remission a possibility, Dad might make it years (note the multiple, she said two or three). I'm not sure how I feel about this - everything I've read indicated that metastatic small cell is one of the most aggressive and hard to treat cancers in existence. But I'm still going to hope...

In related news, Dads white cell count was something like .6 at the beginning of the week - NOT GOOD!! But they did more bloodwork today, and it's up closed to 2. Not normal, and we're not going to let anyone with the sniffles be around him, but better.

Conflicted Grief

My father's dying, and we're all having blast. Sounds... odd, yes? And we're not having fun all the time, but dad seems to have decided that snark and sarcasm are going to get him through this, so snark and sarcasm it is. And we're laughing, a lot, maybe because laughing is easier than crying.

A couple of stories:

Dad saw a physical therapist at the cancer center because he hasn't been able to walk for a long time, and he's getting tired of sitting. In her snottiest voice, she responded, "You do know you have cancer, right? It's in your lungs and your brain."

And in his most sarcastic voice (what's left of it) he responded, "Don't forget the ribs!"

The Cancer Center gave Mom a great big waste of paper from LiveStrong, Lance Armstrongs foundation. It's basically Cancer for Dummies, dumbed down quite a bit. They define sadness and what can cause sadness, for fuck's sake! It also says that if you can't express your feelings in words, you should paint them. Sister then went to Dad and told him that if he ever needs to express any feelings, he could paint them. She got flipped off for her troubles. Then Sister's best friend M got in on it. Now my parents have fingerpaints, paper, canvas and squirt guns for dad to shoot people who annoy him.

We're getting by.

I hate the whole fucking world

I pulled my back (hoisting grandma C off the ground after she fell), I've had to listen to four different people try to tell me what kind of treatment dad should have - none of the doctors. The next person to suggest a macrobiotic diet will be smacked.

Aunt J decided to give a nice lecture about how dad shouldn't take chemo. Ever. "Remember what happened to MJ!" MJ was a high school friend of Mom's who got leukemia. She had a one in a billion reaction to chemo - words cannot even describe how she suffered. So, yeah, I see where she's coming from. But it NOT HER FUCKING DECISION! Dad's doing chemo and radiation for two reasons: to get his balance back (by shrinking the tumor pressing on his balance center) and to give him a few more months. If he'd decided not to do treatment, or that acupuncture and TCM were for him, we'd support him all the way.

And I saw a guy with a lovely bumpersticker:

If I wanted a bitch, I'd get a dog.

I guess warning the population you're a wankstain and waste of oxygen is actually a god thing, though.

I honestly don't know where this concept keeps coming from, but I keep thinking that there's a 'right way' to deal with this whole thing. Maybe if I find the right combination of feelings, everything will get easier. But there isn't, and there won't be, and accepting that my father is dying is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done. And if I'm lucky, my family and I will come out at the end of this a little bit stronger and more self-aware. But without dad.

When did the gods decree that the oldest has to ask the hard questions? Is this law somewhere? Because asking your already on the edge mother if your dying father has an advance medical directive or a do not resuscitate order wasn't on the top of my personal list of Fun Things to do yesterday.

Chemo yesterday, more chemo and some radiation today. Hopefully dad's one of those who can take chemo, because having him sick(er) and (more) miserable all the time would make mom crazier. She's not sleeping - refuses to take the ambien, in case dad needs her at night. Thinking of insisting that hubby and I stay over until sister gets here for the weekend, because mom really needs to sleep.

Chemo and radiation

Those are things that happen to other people, people you barely know. And now ti's happening to my dad. Officially, the radiation is to shrink some of the tumors in his brain and get some function back. The chemo is to fight the rest - the crap in the lungs and bones. But even with all of this, we're only buying him months.

Dad used to be able to cure me with a wave of his finger, or so I thought. Why can't I do the same?

There's no normal in the grieving process

But why the hell do I keep forgetting that I'm going to lose my father for hours at a time? I feel like I should be wallowing in it all the time, that I should be worried about my mom and about him being in pain, so now I feel guilty about it. And I feel guilty about feeling guilty about not thinking about it. Something's wrong in this picture.

Now What?

I'm kind of floundering - how the hell do you deal with something like this? Is there any way to deal with knowing that you father is going to die, probably sooner rather than later? Any way to stop feeling guilty for not pushing him harder to quit smoking? Or for not making him go to the ER sooner? I just... I just don't know, and I don't think reading (books are normally what I turn to first) is going to help. I'm thinking of going back in to Community Mental Health for counseling, because I"m pretty sure that talking to someone who's not in the middle if all of this will help.

Oh, gods.

My dad has cancer. My dad has cancer. Small cell carcinoma, undifferentiated. Metastized into the bones and brain from the lungs. And I'm... can you be numb and terrified at the same time? We don't know the prognosis yet, but the oncologist is coming tomorrow. I'm really, really trying to be optimistic.

Turns out the dizziness wasn't the flu, or anything else it's the fucking cancer, pressing on the balance centers of he brain.