F*** Cancer - long overdue update (keyword long)

[Radii]

My dad had a brain tumor removed back in 2002, he had an extraordinarily aggressive form of cancer back then, I don't' remember exactly what it was called but we were always told that the tumor he had was an extremely rare kind with a very high mortality rate. Luckily because of its location it had an extreme effect on his personality and on some of his motor skills(he was falling a lot) and it was discovered very quickly and operated on very quickly and he ended up fighting and surviving, had whole head radiation, chemo in his spine to try to prevent it from spreading elsewhere, some really nasty sounding stuff that was very very hard on him. He isn't even close to the same person he used to be, but he's still around, which is a major miracle of sorts.

So late 2007 after returning for MRI's every few months dad is proclaimed to be cancer free for 5 full years, and hopefully in the clear.

Ever since I moved home in January it seems like dad has been going downhill, both mentally and physically. Having to retire and not being able to drive or take care of others like he used to be able to is hard on him, and we have to push him to exercise and all that stuff to keep his mind and body active, but he's just been struggling a ton lately.

We went to the doctor for a cough last week, had chest x-rays taken and a bunch of crap shows up on his lungs. I didn't go to the appointment today(it was my sister's day off work so she went instead), I am going with him to a different appointment w/ a different doctor tomorrow, but I talked to my sister after this one and she says that he almost certainly has some form of cancer, they will need to do a biopsy to find out what, how aggressive, how to try to handle it, etcetc, but its definitely bad.


So yeah, fuck cancer. We'll find out more over the next week or two but I needed to write some of this down and FOFC has always been a great community. Dad is 60, too young to be dealing with this for a second time, and I'd kinda prefer he hang around for a few more decades.

[kurtism]

My thoughts are with you and your family, radii. Best wishes and hopes for a clean bill of health, and/or a speedy recovery from whatever ails your dad.

[Eaglesfan27]

Very sorry to hear that. He'll be in my prayers for a complete recovery.

[Schmidty]

You and your family will be in my prayers.

And yeah, I agree - Fuck cancer.

[MikeVic]

[vtbub]

[Swaggs]

You thread title pretty much says it all.

I'll hope for the best for you and your family.

[Kodos]

No words to say that can help.

[JeeberD]

I'm with ya, bud...

[Raiders Army]

Sorry to hear that. My dad died of cancer almost a year ago (April 15th).

[terpkristin]

Wow, I wish I knew what to say.
I'll be thinking of you and your family.

/tk

[Lorena]

Oh no My thoughts are with you and yours, Radii.

[Draft Dodger]

fuck cancer indeed

[cuervo72]

Amen to that. We'll be pulling for him Radii.

[DeeBrownforPresident]

My thoughts and well wishes are with you Radii. I wish your family the best.

[Cringer]

Sorry man. Best wishes for your father.

[A-Husker-4-Life]

My thoughts and prayers go out to you..

[Logan]

Best wishes Radii, and thoughts also to Raiders for what I'm sure will be a tough day.

[Lathum]

sorry to hear Radii

[TRO]

Boo. Just boo.

[Passacaglia]

Sorry to hear, radii.

[CU Tiger]

Fuck Cancer +1
My thoughts and prayers are with you.

My best friend who was also my BIL was lost to this atrocity a year ago January....

How can we spend billions on whatever (war, political campaigns, mansions, etc.) and not have this solved yet....

[SFL Cat]

Lost my mom to ovarian cancer, so your dad is definitely in my thoughts and prayers.

[Malificent]

Originally Posted by TRO

Boo. Just boo.

+1. This says it all. Good luck to your dad and to you, Radii.

[kingnebwsu]

Fuck cancer up the butt.

Hope he does okay man

[Radii]

The doc that they met with today is a surgeon that worked with dad back in 2002 with the brain tumor that mom and dad both like and trust. Good news and bad:

good: the surgeon is extremely confidant that he can safely and easily remove everything in the lung that is showing up on the x-ray and CT scan that has been done. Dad feels much more upbeat today with this news and seems a lot more comfortable today than he has the past few days.

bad: Based on a CT scan that was done last week, the docs can tell with near 100% certainty that this is some form of cancer, not something safe and benign. A biopsy is being done Wednesday and the results from that will take upwards of a week, the purpose of the biopsy being to learn exactly what kind of cancer this is, which may have some small effect on the surgery itself, and will impact what kind of treatments are needed afterwards.


Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. It'll be a week until there's any more news, keeping fingers crossed and such.

[Icy]

My fingers are crossed for you and your dad, good luck mate.

[CleBrownsfan]

I'll be thinking good thoughts for your Dad Radii - Cancer is just an evil thing to deal with...

[BigDPW]

I will pray for your father and family!

[MizzouRah]

Your dad will be in my prayers Radii.

[Radii]

This is why I don't post personal info here. I post it venting and then forget to update the thread when good news comes in!


A week after this post my dad had a biopsy done, and an appointment about a week after that as a follow up, and the doctor informed us that there was NO CANCER in the tissue taken in the biopsy. The doctor suspects that what showed up in the CT Scan is something leftover in his lungs from a prior bout with pneumonia, and wants him to have another scan done in 3 months.

Now, there are definitely some questions here and I am left with more questions than answers. My sister attended the first doctors appointment before the biopsy, and I the second. the first appointment, where they had the results of the CT Scan, we were told "100%, this is definitely cancer, and we'll find out what kind in a biopsy." In the appointment I went to, where we learned that this wasn't cancer, there wasn't any sort of "this is a miracle, I've never seen this before not turn out to be cancer" just a matter of fact "good news, it wasn't cancer. Congrats, see you in 3 months" statement.

I don't understand why the doctor told us "this is definitely cancer" when what he probably meant is "In most cases this isn't good news but we have to do a biopsy to be sure." This has led to some interesting discussions in my family. Knowing the impact that a diagnosis of cancer has on a person and a family, I was really surprised at the way this occurred. Sure miracles happen, but this seems like more of an assumption was made based on the past history of my dad. that's probably reasonable, but presenting that assumption as a matter of certainty when an additional test is being done in a matter of days that will clarify everything seems... bad.


Anyway, I'm ranting. The overwhelming message is a positive one, but seeing how my dad, mom, and sister all handled the couple weeks in the middle got me thinking quite a bit about how everything happened.

[flounder]

Great news! Although I agree the doctor could have handled it better.

[MizzouRah]

Happy to hear the news.. but wow did they handle it bad.

[Schmidty]

Glad to hear it!!

[Dr. Sak]

Great news Radii!

[Kodos]

Great news! Sorry the doctor was an asshat.

[Eaglesfan27]

Sounds like things could have been handled better, but glad to hear the great news

[Radii]

Its update time, unfortunately. I moved back home with my parents in January 2008, so I've been here almost 5 full years now. Dad had been cancer free for 5 years at that point, and while the surgery and the chemo and radiation had done some permanent damage, my dad could still walk down the road to my grandfather's house to visit him every day, we had to check on him to make sure he took care of himself, but for the most part he could. He just couldn't drive, couldn't work, etc. In 2009 that started to slowly, but seriously change.

I mentioned it in my first post way back when, but, When dad had his brain cancer back in 2002, he had whole head radiation. I think I said that phrase many, many times before I fully understood it. You don't just blast someone's head with large doses of poison over and over and over and have it be okay. I don't know the technical or medical term for it, but mom and I sat down with Dad's neurologist to understand better awhile back, and the way he explained it is that the massive amounts of radiation dad required back in 2002-2003 set off a slow but permanent process that would kill off brain cells and he'd start to shows signs that would resemble alzheimers, or dementia, but it wouldn't be those things exactly. Googling such things brings back a term called "radiation necrosis", talking about some effects that may not happen for years after radiation. I've never heard that phrase, but that kind of thing sounds right to me.

From 2009-2011, we took dad to the ER 13 or 14 times. Sometimes the reasons were small (relatively), sometimes they were not. He always came out a little worse for wear, but for those 3 years the decline was very slow. Some balance issues, needing a walker, needing help going to the bathroom, not being able to make his sandwich anymore and needing us to do it for him... the occasional change in some level that knocked him out (a low sodium count out of nowhere causing extreme weakness, etc). However, at the end of 2011 we saw big and permanent changes, like the neurologist described. He's been in a hospital bed permanently for a year now. We have some help in and out to keep things as steady and sane as possible. Hospital trips in 2009 were practically routine, but necessary. Hospital trips in 2012 are less frequent, but infinitely more serious, more scary.

We could have Hospice here any time we decide for it. But, Hospice means no more hospitals. Hospice is effectively an end of life decision. Its a decision to treat his pain, at home, the next time he gets an infection, instead of treating the infection at a hospital. How do you make that decision? We don't know what's going to happen next, or when. That's a lot of unpredictability to base an end of life decision around. Dad is weak, his life quality is poor, but he's always very clearly been mentally sound enough to decide this on his own, and myself, my mom and my sister have always fully supported that. And the few times we've felt the need to sit down and talk about it, dad has been very strong and very clear. Even with a poor quality of life, he does not want to die. He isn't in severe or constant pain, there are things that he can still enjoy, however small those things are, we are capable of caring for him, so he gets to decide. At least, that's how its been the last 12-15 months. So no Hospice.

I think things are changing, in two ways. His last hospital visit was a month ago, and it seems like it represented another large permanent decline. There are now days where we're not sure if leaving this end of life decision up to him is the right thing to do anymore. Earlier it was easy. It is dad's decision, very clearly. Now its not so clear anymore, and that sucks. At what point do we decide his mental state has fallen to that point where he can't decide this? At what point do we say that we can observe enough pain and suffering that there is only one decision to make? But... it may not matter, and not for a good reason...

The other change happened yesterday. For the first time ever, dad seems defeated. We're hoping he's just down and he'll perk back up, but right now that's not what it feels like. My instincts have told me things are coming to an end a few times, and so far I've been very happy to be wrong. I hope I'm wrong now, but I'm unsure enough that I felt like I needed to write it down somewhere... for whatever reason.

I'm not really asking for anything here, I just needed to unload somewhere and this has always been a safe place to do so, but, I'll happily listen to anything anyone does take the time to say. Thanks for being an awesome group of people. Basically, there are times when life isn't fair, this is one of them. Dad's 65 now, too young for this.

[Radii]

Apologies for the sheer length of that. I type too damn much.

[flounder]

I'm so sorry to hear that.

[Icy]

First i want to congratulate you for what you have done so far for your dad. Life is this way, parents take care of kids without any kind of appreciation until it's the sons who take care of the parents and you notice how much they have done for you and sometimes it's too late to show them that appreciation. At least you have done it for the last 5 years and i'm sure your father feels recompensed.

As for the decisions from now, don't really know what to say and hope i'm not ever in the situation to have to decide about the life of the people i love as it must be really hard.

I guess you must to try to position in your father's current situation if that is even possible, and to think what would you want your family to do for you. That way you at least would do for him that you think it's the best, of course always under you point of view that might be different than his, but if he can't decide you must do it under your own believes and feel good with your decission, there is no other way.

If i was in your father situation, i would probably prefer to leave that kind of life, but I probably think now that because i'm not in that situation, maybe my point of view would change if i was closer to the end, specially from my non believer way of seeing life and dead, as for me there is nothing else for you once you are gone.

If he or you are believers, then leaving this world wouldn't be that bad or would be better than being in pain and not able to enjoy life properly. Sometimes i envy believers for that, but you feel what you feel.

Hope the best for you and your father, whatever it is.

[CleBrownsfan]

Really sorry Radii - you're right - too damn young for your father to be going through this!

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Radii

Apologies for the sheer length of that. I type too damn much.

Well, you know, when writing emotional screeds about cancer- brevity is always top of the list of what you're shooting for

Seriously, tho. Thoughts and prayers for you.

SI

[DaddyTorgo]

Sorry to hear this Radii. My thoughts are with you.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Differentiating between the patient's wishes and my own wishes was the thing that I had the hardest time with during my grandmother's battle. That's a very difficult peace to find, much less the more complex situation you're facing.

Thoughts & prayers with you and your family.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

My wife and I did something similar for our mother-in-law over a period of time. It's not easy to provide care like you're doing, but I can guarantee that your father appreciates it and I know you'll be happy about the decision to care for him later on when you look back in hindsight.

I realize it's not exactly a thankless job, but the 'thanks' are few and far between. You all will make the right decision and don't ever feel guilty about doing so when it happens.

[BYU 14]

Thoughts and prayers to you and your family Radii, I feel for you man. And as Icy said, you were there for your Father the entire journey and that has undoubtedly enriched his life through these horrible times.

[Subby]

Radii -

You are on of my all-time favorites. The amount of courage it takes to do what you have done for as long as you have done is incredible.

Hang in there, bud. Thinking of you and your dad.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Subby

Radii -

You are on of my all-time favorites. The amount of courage it takes to do what you have done for as long as you have done is incredible.

Hang in there, bud. Thinking of you and your dad.

this

[claphamsa]

This is why I have a living will... I dont ever want anyone to have to make this choice for me....