Draining Times

As I start typing this post, my father is being bombarded by energy particles in a metal shell. The PET scan is to determine whether the tumor in his stomach has changed size one way or another. The hopes were that it would be mostly gone after the second round of chemotherapy.

Since nothing has been exiting his stomach in a downward direction, there are a lot of concerns at the moment. Doctors have been puzzling over the case and many a theory broached, yet this is the test that will shed the most light on just what is happening. Surgery may be required if the RCHOP regimen has failed.

Meanwhile, Dad is not looking good today. He's as gray as his hair due to a lack of sleep and dramatic loss of weight. Fortunately, my sister is here to assist in looking after him. My immune system has shown signs of wanting to go on strike, so I spent yesterday at home resting.

It has been especially difficult for my father the last 48 hours thanks to having a tube down his nose going to his stomach. Since nothing is making its way through his GI system, constant pumping of his stomach is required. This has been a miserable experience resulting in his not sleeping.

Hopefully they will give him something to knock him out tonight.

Back to the home front, the house needs cleaning and sterilizing -- no exaggeration. This morning the long process began and I hope to get more done so Dad can come home to a less infection causing environment. Cat litter boxes have been cleaned, initial stabs at saving vomit stained clothing and rugs tried, and most organic refuse disposed of. Next is cleaning out the refrigerator including a too old duck. The latter will have to be buried somewhere where the soil is sufficiently thawed.

All of this is presuming father will be coming home. The possibility he won't make it increases the longer things stretch on. That might upset some reading this, but being a true adult means facing reality head on preferably without flinching.

All will be dealt with as it comes, no matter how messy.

Dad has a large number of people praying for him and a top notch hospital taking care of him. That's something to be grateful for.

Emergency Room Blues

As I sit in the ER for the second time in two days, things are miserable for my father. Last night he ended up with 1.5 liters of fluids, an x-ray, and a new drug for the hiccups. It worked, but the vomiting continued and then things escalated by ten this morning.

While talking with my sister on the telephone, his speech began slurring and his words didn't make sense.

Another long drive to Gunderson with Dad reporting weird mental imagery and thoughts. Questioning revealed he'd taken the generic thorazine earlier on top of the baclofen he'd been given less than twelve hours before.

So while a stroke has to be ruled out, I can't help wondering if the menagery of drugs in his system are interacting in a negative way.

Right now, Dad is back from a CT scan and the investigation continues. EKG time. More to come later.

Later:
Tests show no signs of a stroke with the thorazin being the likely culprit for the disorientation, confusion, shortness of breath, and pounding heart episodes.

However, my father is still spitting up black material in his mucous. Yes, this is the messy side of reporting medical travails. Illness is an organic thing -- sometimes too organic. That mystery needs solving so that he can take in nourishment of some kind.

He'll be held overnight for observation.

I'd be ungrateful if I didn't mention the aid rendered by hospital workers of all stripes and by a friend who came over to give him a blessing. The help has been well appreciated.

Much later:
There are still no rooms available at the hospital and we are still in an ER exam room. Dad is doing better, but he's had no food or drink so we'll see what happens when that is allowed. At least he's catching up on missed sleep.

I wish I could say the same.

Time to recharge the Nook HD.

The Hard Part Has Arrived

Up until Thursday things had been going fairly well, if plagued by exhaustion after a wretched Tuesday where my father bit off more than he could chew on a service call. Moving to the full dosage for the second cycle of chemo meant it was time to start seeing side effects. Out of control acid reflux and hiccups arrived by the end of the week, making it nearly impossible for him to sleep. Yesterday it got worse, a lot worse.

One of the most common side effects of chemotherapy is nausea and vomiting. The latter hit my dad in escalating waves throughout the day with nothing staying down. Not familiar with being ill or with side effects, he’s flailed around blaming other things. Making things worse is that he never associated anti-nausea medication prescribed with the vomiting.

As in since he wasn’t feeling nauseous, he didn’t take the medicine.

Sigh. Between dealing with cluelessness and misery while unable to do anything about it, I’ve been extremely frustrated. At least the hiccups are now under control thanks to an emergency run to pick up a prescription of thorazine yesterday. Apparently it is used for that too, little did I know.

So I’m home, skipping church in order to keep an eye on him. He’s finally found some slumber which makes me hopeful he’ll get over this. Now to wait to see what happens.

One thing that worries me about my father is that he’s not gotten it into his head that he has to fight to win this battle. Instead, he’s been passive. That’s the wrong attitude for surviving any threat. Since I’ve had to fight to function to any degree my entire adult life, I lack empathy when it comes to dealing with non-warrior attitudes. This is something I need to work on.

Endurance Run

Time to report about how my father is doing and just a few minutes before this post was started I had to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him when a cyclovir pill tried to kill him. No, this isn’t an attempt to be humorous.

Fortunately for him, I was in the bathroom next to the kitchen when I heard him choking and found him doubled over. Concerned that his stomach might have perforated, I quickly ascertained that it was simple choking and asked him if he needed me to Heimlich him. A nod was all I needed and I very carefully made an escalating trio of attempts very conscious of the dangers of rupturing the cancer stricken stomach. The third time the pill popped out and he was able to breathe again.

After that, I made sure he was okay and that there was no pain in the abdomen. I’ll be checking periodically, but the force used was carefully measured so I don’t expect complications. Heck of a way to end the day, yet it is consistent with how difficult the entire week has been.

Bitter Cold, Low Blood, and the Beating of Drums

I’ve fallen behind in posting, so I’m throwing together a variety of subjects into this one to save time. Surviving winter has become a priority thanks to another bitter cold snap dubbed a “polar vortex” by the know nothing media. –35 below wind chills along with wood pellet supplies being depleted locally led us to purchasing corn to burn in the pellet stove. Figuring out the rate to feed the kernels to the fire pot has been difficult, but at least we have supplemental heat to offset the incredibly expensive LP gas during this latest cold snap.

Speaking of temperatures, Dad is doing well with the chemotherapy, but his white blood cell count is down so he’s having to monitor his temperature in case of fever. If he runs a high temperature he is to head straight for the emergency room. Other than that, he’s still running me ragged.

Going with the Flow

It has been one week since the initial round of chemotherapy for Dad and he’s survived it with no ill effects other than with my annoyance at how perky he’s been due to the Prednisone. For the moment he has more energy than I do despite the end of that particular course. We’ll see if that pattern holds up deeper into the treatment schedule.

While the battle with cancer continues, it is the siege by forces of winter that has occupied a great deal of our time, energy, and attention the last several days. Local wood pellet shortages combined with an aerial attack of snow resulted in our being forced to fortify our position. Hunkering down has nothing to do with problems getting the car up the driveway despite what the propaganda arm of the forces of tyrannical Jack Frost claim.

Timing

It is said that timing is everything and while I believe that saying has a great deal of truth to it, I’ve always felt that seizing opportunities is far more important. So its been with a little chagrin that I’ve looked back on the last few weeks. Of late, timing really has been everything.

Little did I know that starting a new daily approach to weight training back in December would be critical for me having enough capacity to help my father deal with cancer in February. While my energy levels are only slightly up, the gain in muscle strength makes simple things such as moving around dramatically easier. In essence, I’m able to do more with less.

This is a traditionally slow time of the year for appliance repair, so there is less demand for my father’s services. Yes, this hurts the bottom line when dealing with all the expenses mounting up. However, it means he’s able to take things slowly without feeling guilty about it.

On a less dramatic note, yesterday had a few pleasant surprises for us. Little things working out and even an unexpected bonus of sublime silliness via the Squid Girl OVA’s bundled with graphic novels in Japan suddenly showing up on Crunchyroll. There is nothing like the healing power of laughter in my opinion, thoracic wounds aside. Watching the two episodes made us wish a third season would be made or at least the second being released on DVD or Blu-ray in North America.

Even with timing working out the way it has, I’m not letting go of my faith in making the most of opportunities. Chemotherapy infusion is a long process taking hours, so my sister Ann Marie and I had time to kill. For her, it meant cramming an online course into her head in preparation of taking the Bar exam. In my case, it was a chance to experiment with video conversion the day before so that I could take notes on a movie.

So as the various chemicals dripped into Dad’s veins, I watched a movie on my Nook HD while wearing headphones. Balancing the tablet on one knee and the notebook on the other, I scribbled away with the occasional interruption. Handbrake’s ability to burn subtitles into the video frames themselves made this possible, so you can safely assume the next review is of a foreign film.Of course that only took up two hours or so. Dad read a book on the Cook County hospital and I made headway into To Kingdom Come, an account of the disastrous 1943 bombing raid on Stuttgart. Both books are guaranteed to make you angry at authority, so maybe they aren’t the best reading during a stressful time.

Still, it was not a brain dead room.

Later that night I hooked the Nook HD up to the motel room TV and streamed episodes of Arrow from Flixster to introduce Ann to the series. Worked great until we were bandwidth throttled into oblivion.

Speaking of timing, I need to finish three weeks of unwashed dishes, get a workout in, and start screen capturing. No doubt, something else will come up to interrupt it all…