So I've had a so-so year. Back in January, my father went to the doctor with a cough he's had for a while. They scheduled an ultrasound, and noticed a mass during the test. He got a biopsy performed, and 10 days later, got a result. It's cancerous. He went to the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philly, and was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer. The mass that was noticed earlier was what spread to his gall duct. My dad's a big guy. 6'2, and he's been hovering around 300lbs for the past 15 years. Anyway, since the diagnosis, he's gone through chemo and radiation and the tumors (while still present), appear to be greatly diminished. He's lost a lot of weight (now around 210), but never got sick from either treatment. However, the doctor said that the damage has already been done, and it's only a matter of time. His liver is leaking a constant liquid into his body. They drained 10.5 liters of it 2 weeks ago, and another 9 liters last week. So he's getting drained every week, but they're going to give him surgery in the near future (he's putting it off atm) to get almost a catheter type of thing, that will allow the liver to drain into a bag that he will have to empty on his own.
So yesterday he was out in the driveway talking to a neighbor, and he fell over. Didn't hit his head, but he started feeling nauseous and threw up a ton of blood and clots. Turns out that the chemo/radiation caused a blood vessel in his stomach to have a very thin liner, and when he fell, it burst. On the up side, the blood stopped, and he's getting a transfusion tomorrow, but doc says there's no guarantee that if a blood vessel bursts in the future that it could even stop bleeding. So yeah, that's what I'm dealing with right now.
For conspiracy reasons, he's never had cancer in the family, except on an adopted sister, so it isn't genetic. But he was vaxed with a few boosters.
I went out to visit him again last week. It was a "mostly" nice trip. I got to do various odds and ends around the house for him like... cleaning the cat boxes for trash night. And pulling all the plants that are still in his small greenhouse so he has a fresh area to work with next spring. I also drove around in one of his cars and took car of other stuff for him. We went out and saw Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. We went out to dinner at some Japanese buffet that was maybe a five minute walk from Trump's McDonald's event.
We also went out to a restaurant that I really like, so that was fun... until it wasn't.
He and I went to that restaurant. His wife stayed home because she was tired. Things were good while we were there, but when it was time to leave, he couldn't stand up out of his chair. We kept trying things, and eventually another diner helped me pick him up so he could walk out (on his own power). He uses a walker right now, but he's almost too weak to even use it, if that makes any sense. If the ground is less than perfectly smooth, he has to re-evaluate the bump and if he's able to lift the walker over it.
Once we got out to the parking lot, I asked him to stand on the sidewalk while I ran out and grabbed his vehicle. When I pulled it up for him to get in (he was standing in the street now, not the sidewalk.) She told me that he was trying to walk into the parking lot. She stopped him until I was able to bring the vehicle over (all of 1-2 minutes from when I left him). I put his walker into the trunk of his car and he had to think about how to sit down. He kept trying to slide the car seat further back, even though it was as far as it could go. I eventually talk-guided him into how to sit down.
On our way home, I noticed that his car was running on vapors, so I stopped by Costco and filled it up. When I was done, I saw that his door was open, and he was trying to get out. I was able to stop him, but he kept saying that he wanted to pay for the gas, so he had his credit card out. I asked him to put his seat belt back on, and drove out of Costco's parking lot. A little down the street, I noticed that he still wasn't wearing his seat belt, so I pulled off into another parking lot and he tried to take out his credit card again. I stopped him and put on his seat belt myself so it was done. Then continued driving back to his house.
When we got there, he was able to get out of the car and walk into his house while I parked it in the garage. Then I came into the house and he had somehow pushed his walker into the corner of the couch, and had the middle bar stuck on the armrest. So one of the walker legs was on the front and the other was on the side. He was stuck there and unable to go any further. He sat down on the couch right there, but wanted to go into his lazy-boy recliner instead. Next was him trying to stand up again so he could move 1 seat to the right, and that was a huge struggle. I had to call his neighbor to help out. When we tot him into the seat, his wife kept saying that she thinks he's having a stroke, just for him to shout "I'm fine, leave me alone!" She's in her 70's as well, but she was a nurse her entire working life. She wanted to call for an ambulance, but he was refusing it.
I ended up calling them myself (he was fine with me doing it). When they came out, we told them exactly what had happened and they decided to give him a blood sugar test. It was at 28, where as he normally runs 175-190 range. Keep in mind, 300 is diabetic. He also has a history of type 2 diabetes. Anyway, that super low blood sugar explained why he was acting so out of it and not himself. They gave him an IV with glucose, and he perked right up, back to his normal state. He was even joking around with the paramedics. They ended up taking him to the hospital just to be safe. His blood sugar from the glucose infusion had jumped up to 90. In the 30 minutes it took to get to the hospital, it had dropped to 62. So he was given a room in the ER. Then that night moved over to ICU. A few days later, he was stepped down to PCU.
They came to the conclusion that his blood sugar had bottomed out because of a reaction to one of his medications. He's been on that same medication for a matter of years, but they decided to keep him even longer because they need to examine all of his meds and swap a few with something else so that they can all co-exist together without causing any problems. That's what seems to be the problem. One of his newer meds was reacting to one of his other meds, so now they're in the process of re-evaluating all of his current meds so they can set up a new system that actually works together. It's been a week now (since he was hospitalized), and he's still there. Hopefully he'll be able to get out soon.
Also, we were told by his cancer doctor that the cancer is no longer life threatening. However, it's damage has already been done. And now his liver has cirrhosis. And while the cancer won't get him, the cirrhosis might. So now it's a waiting game. Sorry for the wall of text, I just wanted to spit out all of my memories.
