Knowing Is Better than Not Knowing

Time for an update on what is going on with my father’s battle with cancer. With the last chemotherapy infusion cancelled at his request, the hope had been that it would accelerate the schedule for surgery to do something about in improperly functioning stomach. That hope has been dashed as of today.

Results from the barium study indicate that there no longer is an obstruction of the exit from the stomach. However, the flow is still not much and it appears that nerve damage has been caused by the RCHOP regime. The upshot of this is that Dad will probably never eat food again.

A longshot attempt to increase motility in his system will be tried for a week by increasing Regulin, a drug he was already on for side effects. When that fails, a permanent feeding tube will have to be surgically implanted into his small intestine. More information will be provided by the PET scan next week and decisions will have to be made afterword.

This is a far cry from the possible surgeries discussed before. Dad is a bit stunned, yet says he’s relieved because at least he has an idea of what is going on now. He’s slowly been emerging from the fog of “chemo brain” the past week, allowing him to better comprehend things. It still takes me multiple explanations to get things through to him, but I recall having to repeat myself for decades.

It’s been a tough week with this new diagnosis and continued problems with the NJ feeding tube. We ended up skipping a feeding thanks to the tube being blocked and taking overnight to dissolve. Thankfully no replacement needed despite the meat tenderizer mixed with water taking way to long to dissolve the blockage. That particular tip works where the injecting Coke one hasn’t at all.

Adding to the travails is lightning damage to the main Internet router necessitating an emergency purchase from Amazon. The venerable old Linksys WRT54g finally started acting up after the recent storms that spawned tornadoes over in Wisconsin. Being the only WiFi source in the house, bypassing it by going straight to the DSL modem isn’t working out so wellly one or two devices can be using it and none by the dedicated jacks now.

I wonder what else the week will bring?