34 posts tagged “dad”

It's Halloween, but my mind is on All Souls Day, two days from now (Nov. 2).

I haven't written much about my Dad's passing and my associated grief. I'm not sure why - it certainly occupies my thoughts. Maybe it's just a relief to write about something else to get my mind off it. I feel like there is still a lot to process, particularly the heartbreak of seeing him go through months of difficult and ultimately fruitless chemotherapy. He was so darn hopeful and patient the whole time. He was only hoping for a extra few months to enjoy life a bit -- just to be able to do something simple like go out to dinner and spend time with friends and family. So of course it feels terribly unfair, but then who said life was fair.

My Dad's church will be recognizing All Souls Day this Sunday, and will ring the church bells for each member of the congregation that passed away in the past year, including my Dad.

I am back in Seattle this week; returning to Chicago after the Labor Day holiday.

It was hard leaving my Dad, but also good to be back home for a spell. My brother is now visiting there so it will be nice for him to have some 1:1 time with Dad.

The hospice nurse today estimated it might be another 4-6 weeks, which actually is hard for me to believe given my Dad's current condition. But I have no previous experience with cancer end of life and of course the hospice has lots of experience, so they are probably in the ballpark.

At hospice's suggestion, we did some initial planning for the visitation and memorial service. I've been chipping away at what I want to say at the service, but I can only work on in small chunks. I want to do the right sort of thing to honor my Dad, so that keeps propelling me forward on it.

I am enjoy some small Seattle pleasures, including incredible wild huckleberries that my cousin Elise brought by. With them, I made a Huckleberry Crispler, which is what we are calling the topping from the cherry-rhubarb "cobbler" I made last month (which is really a cross between a crisp and a cobbler, thus "crispler").

Drake in particular has been enjoying the Huckleberry Crispler:

I feel a sense of unreality as my Dad's continues to weaken... the hospital bed brought in for him and the 24-hr. care. It's all very difficult for me to wrap my head around. My Dad's always been so youthful and strong, but then cancer is a mighty foe.

I took the afternoon off work to get some things together (including myself) for the trip. I don't know how long I'm staying, but I am assuming it will be at least two weeks... it's been cool here in Seattle, but Chicago in August of course will be hot. Bringing work stuff, workout stuff, reading stuff, knitting stuff. I went up to the knit shop earlier to ball up enough yarn to finish my sweater. The shop was holding some type of knitting day camp session outside in the back, and the little girls were fascinated by the swift and turning the hanks into balls. The group came in to watch... so cute.

OK, now I need to get off my duff, do some laundry and get organized.

My Dad's oncologist came to his house last night to visit my Dad and his wife. Everyone was in agreement that the next move should be getting in-home hospice care.  I think this is a blessing as it will give my Dad more consistent pain relief and provide specialized care-giving. My Dad is doing fine with this option... certainly this has been a long road for him in this fight.

I talked with my Dad's wife Carol today. I haven't posted much about my Dad because it's been a continuing decline and I kept hoping he would turn the corner, recover from the effects of chemotherapy, and be able to enjoy life a bit. That scenario is unlikely. They believe the cancer, despite the months of chemotherapy, has spread to his bladder, which accounts for the awful urinary symptoms he's been having.

I had planned to fly back later in the month; I've moved the trip up to this coming Saturday. Carol is finally ready to get some in-home health care services; I think both my Dad and she wanted to avoid this as it acknowledges the seriousness of the situation.

In my heart of hearts I really thought he would eventually rebound and have a few good months. It's very hard to face the alternative scenario.

I've not posted in a while about my Dad, mainly because there hadn't been much change in how he was doing. A few weeks ago they elected to stop the chemotherapy because it was no longer pushing his PSA downward and he has all along suffered such severe side-effects.

This past week, they did both a bone scan and tissue scan. Everything is stable, meaning the cancer has not advanced any more. The tissue scan came back completely clear; the "hot spots" on his bones are pretty much the same, except for a small increase in the chest area.

But, he is have a difficult time post-therapy. They are weaning him off Prednisone, which he had been on for the duration of the therapy (since January). The Prednisone withdrawal has caused his already severe fatigue to become even worse. He sounded very weak today.

At the cancer center, he ran into an acquaintance who also had severe fatigue with Taxotere. It took a couple of months to rebound from it. I hope that proves true with my Dad, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel here. It has already been such a long struggle.

My current work project is a short one - about a month - after which I think I'll carve out some time to go back to Chicago again.

It seems like as soon as I post that things are going relatively OK with my Dad, something happens. In this case, it was a problem with his kidney stent.

They had placed the kidney stent in late January to open a kidney blockage that had developed (not an uncommon problem with advanced prostate cancer). The original procedure didn't quite go as planned; they weren't able to place it via the urethra and instead needed to go in via the kidney -- which made the procedure more invasive and involved.

Over the Memorial Day weekend he developed some serious urinary bleeding. In addition, he was having quite a bit of pain. He absolutely did not want to go into the ER, despite the fact that the bleeding was worsening. I can't blame him a bit...he's spent way too much time there in recent months and it often isn't particularly fruitful. So, they waited until  Tuesday morning, when his wife Carol took him into the urologist. Apparently kidney stents need to be replaced periodically, and the urologist thought replacing the stent would solve the bleeding/pain problem. The procedure (which requires general anesthesia) was scheduled for today and went fine without complications.

But it was a long week for my Dad. With the stent replaced, I am really hoping he will start feeling better soon.

My Dad had this 5th chemotherapy treatment yesterday. It went fine and he continues to feel OK.

There is still a lot of up-and-down, but no medical emergencies. He's also doing better with eating.

I am so glad I got his computer set up for him; he's been feeling up to spending some time checking email, getting on the Internet, and playing some games.

In mid-June, I'll be flying up to Chicago for a quick weekend (from a conference I'm attending in Austin, TX). I'll be there for Father's Day!

I haven't posted a picture of my Dad in a while. This one was sent to me from my cousin Chris... it's at the family lake cottage in Wisconsin. My Dad eventually studied classical guitar, but before that he played folk guitar, which is what I think he is doing here.

Dad playing guitar

Got home around 10:30 last night. It was a long, packed flight from Newark, but I was just lucky to grab a seat on this flight; the alternatives were much worse (including a 9-hour jaunt via Las Vegas, getting me into Seattle at 3:00am). The last-minute nature of the New Jersey trip (which I had hoped would just be canceled after repeated delays) meant I didn't have much in the way of choices travel-wise. I wound up in a Holiday Inn, which was actually nice enough, but they were host to a huge school group, which meant teenagers giggling, slamming doors, and running in the halls until late until the night. Hotel management (I did call and complain) seemed helpless to manage this.

I was quite sad leaving my Dad and Carol on Wednesday. I really wanted to stay through the week. My Dad seemed to be doing better--the problems swallowing have subsided, which helps with eating (though he still has problems with appetite). The major thing I got accomplished while I was there was getting a laptop computer set up for him in his home office, including getting Internet access on that side of the house. So, on days when he's feeling up to it, he can get on the computer, check his email, and use the Internet. His best time of day seems to be between about 4:30 in the afternoon through dinner. He had a couple of bad days while I was there (post-treatment days) but was perking up the last couple of days before I left.

My brother will be visiting in mid-June; I'll be going back after that again. In the mean time, it feels good to be home.

Since arriving in Chicago, I've not had much computer time. Over the weekend, I was busy at my Dad and Carol's visiting and tackling some small household projects. Monday and Tuesday I was on-site at a client's all day. My work schedule for the rest of the week will be more flexible--I was supposed to go on to New Jersey but it looks like the client wants to push that visit out until the end of next week.

It is so great to see my Dad. Really, he's been doing pretty well. The extra week they gave him off chemotherapy did him good. He still spends most of the day in bed, but we've been able to do some nice visiting at meal times. Carol reports that his eating the past several days has been as good as it's ever been since starting therapy. And he's in excellent spirits.

Yesterday, he had another round of chemotherapy. In addition to waiting a week, they reduced to dose by 15%. Dad felt relatively good yesterday, but that is typical on a therapy day (and the day after) since they give him some extra steroids prior to treatment. The pattern thus far is that he starts feeling the effects of the treatment a couple of days after. So we'll see how it goes this time.

The encouraging news is that his PSA is down to 19. Pre-treatment it was 111. That is an excellent response. It's been a very rough go for him, but at least he is responding to the Taxotere (not everyone does).

It's been very spring-like so far -- yesterday up around 80 -- and I'm just getting ready to go over to the Botanic Gardens for a run.