34 posts tagged “dad” (page 2)

I had a good long talk with my Dad's wife Carol last night. It had been a long day that included a trip to both the oncologist and an ear, nose, throat specialist.

My Dad had been scheduled for chemotherapy yesterday, but they decided to delay that one week to see if he can gain some strength. There are signs that the therapy is slowing the cancer. The bone scan (done last week) showed only one additional small cancer "hot spot". His PSA is down to 31 (from around 50 a few weeks ago, and around 115 before he started treatment).

However, his overall health at this point continues to be fragile, which is why they did not go forward with treatment as scheduled. I am really hopeful he can gain even a small amount of ground in this next week.

One thing they are looking into more seriously is the problems he's had swallowing. This has been chronic for several weeks now and combined with periodic nausea is impacting his ability to eat. Meals are difficult for him and poor Carol - it's almost impossible to predict what might work for him. So far, he's not lost any additional weight as he's still been able to tolerate the nutritional supplements. The oncologist referred him to an ear, nose, throat specialist; he was scheduled to have an esophageal x-ray today.

I leave Friday morning so will be there soon!

I have tried to remain as upbeat as possible about my Dad's condition, but this past week had several concerning developments.

• On Tuesday, he developed a fever of 102.5. His doctor wanted him to go into the ER, but not surprisingly that suggestion was not well-received since he'd only just gotten home from a 5-day hospital stay. So, they started him on oral Cipro at home and that worked to bring the fever down. However, he was having horrible side-effects from it, so tried to stop taking it. The fever came back, so he went back on it.
• He doesn't seem to able to gain much ground with his hemoglobin level, despite last week's transfusion. That makes me worry his bone marrow is not functioning right at all.
• He went to the Coumadin clinic to have his blood checked (he's on Coumadin as a result of a stoke he had about a year ago). He seems not to be responding to the Coumadin therarpy (it's not thinning his blood) and they don't really know why.
• He's not eating much right now.

I leave for Chicago on Friday and plan to be there (with a few days on the East coast on business) for at least two weeks. It happens to fit with work that makes sense for me to do from Chicago, but I am prepared to stay on as necessary.

I keep hoping he's going to turn the corner on this, but the trend line the past several weeks in particular is not running that direction.

Dad was released from the hospital today; his blood values appear to have stabilized and he was feeling better (though yesterday was not a great day for him -- more weakness and fatigue).

He's due for his next chemotherapy treatment a week from tomorrow; he hadn't talked to his oncologist about this, but he suspects they will delay the treatment until he recovers more. I assured him that after Drake's third or fourth treatment his blood values were such that they almost delayed treatment for him (he was borderline, and since he'd otherwise been doing well, they went ahead as scheduled). I know it happens a lot with therapy, so if they do need to delay hopefully it will just be for a week or so. Dad described feeling pretty "womped" by the last round of treatment so I think he's very open to having a bit of a recovery period before the next treatment.

I'm glad he's home now; it's always nice to be resting in your own bed.

Talked to my Dad this morning. As usual, he was upbeat and matter-of-fact. He's got multiple issues going on and they are chipping away at addressing each.

• They've gotten his heart rate down to 80, which the cardiologist was very happy about. However, the side-effect of this is that his blood pressure is now running about 70/40. He's not sure what they are going to do that, but their main priority was on resolving the irregular heart beat.
• His white blood cell count dropped to 1.8 and he also spiked a fever of about 101. Not a good combination. They have him in isolation now (and on IV antibiotics). They are still working to identify any possible infection that's going on. His temperature right now, however, is back to normal.

Overall, he said he isn't in any pain or discomfort, just very tired, weak, and drowsy. He's still clearly tracking on things - no loss of sharpness evident at all in our phone conversation. So we will just have to be patient as they work to get everything back on track.

I got a call from his wife, Carol, last night. He had been getting increasingly weak, and then also seemed to be breathless. She took him into the cancer center for some blood work; his pulse was up around 160 so they sent him over to the ER. In the ER they got his pulse stabilized, but both his white cell count (2.2) and hemoglobin (8.5) were low so they got a transfusion going last night.

I talked to him this morning and he's feeling better (hemoglobin is up to 9.8), but they are running lots of tests to see if he might have an underlying infection. It's a bit odd that his white cell count a week ago was up around 17, now it's down so low. Hopefully, they can sort out what's going on here.

I talked to my Dad today, the day after his third treatment with Taxotere.

• The treatment went fine; no problems with the infusion.
• His fractured ribs are feeling better; he's only really bothered when he lays down a certain way; he's fine when walking or sitting.
• He is still very tired and weak. His hemoglobin is around 9 (normal is 13-17) so they are going to increase the frequency of the red-blood-cell boosting shots to every other week. I'm not sure exactly what he's receiving here; Drake got Aranesp during his therapy. Hopefully, the more frequent shots will make him feel better.
• But, the positive news is that his PSA has gone from 115 (pre-treatment) to 51 after the second treatment. It's an indication that the Taxotere is having an impact.

He sounded very positive and upbeat, even though he admitted wasn't feeling too well today.

We also talked about me visiting in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to see him! I should be able to finalize my travel plans next week.

I've posted quite a few older pictures of my Dad--here is a recent one, taken this past Thanksgiving. It's not the best quality photo, but I still like it.

Dad

Talked to my Dad this morning and he said he's got less pain now from the fractured ribs, and the (unrelated) difficulty he was having swallowing has improved as well. Really, he sounded good, stronger than earlier in the week.

He said he now has an enormous pitch-black bruise on his torso -- I can only imagine.

So, I think things are stable for now.

I'm likely traveling to the east coast in April, so I'm planning a stop-off in Chicago for sure assuming the business trip goes as planned.

Here's another photo from 1958. This looks like it was taken in the summer, which would have made me about 6 months old here.

1958

He's doing OK, but has two broken ribs. He somehow caught his foot in a cord and fell against a TV stand.

I just found this out via my brother; I haven't been able to get a hold of my Dad directly, but he's not in the hospital right now, he's at home -- so that's a plus.

But damn, everything had been going so smoothly.

Update: I talked to my Dad and he sounded OK. He really didn't want to go into the hospital and so they wound up not admitting him. He's taking Percoset every 4 hours to manage the pain. He's been doing his best to breath as fully as possible, get up out of bed -- the concern at this point is pneumonia settling in to his lungs. There really isn't much they can do for broken ribs; the healing time and pain is extended by the necessity to breath, which keeps a certain amount of constant stress on the ribs.

The timing is really awful on this, just as he was gaining back some strength. All things considered, he sounded pretty matter-of-fact about the situation, but I am sure it's extremely frustrating.

He had his second round of Taxotere on Tuesday - all went well with the infusion - that's a milestone because if he was going to have an allergic reaction, it would most likely occur in the first couple of treatments.

He's been able to get up and out on his own, doing short errands. He still reports feeling a bit shaky walking around, but the fact that he's able to function independently is a wonderful improvement.

The bone pain which had been troubling him is gone (for now at least) and he's gained 5 pounds back! The doctor had been very emphatic about stemming his weight loss and so he has been faithfully consuming the prescribed nutritional supplements.

All of the above are signs that the therapy could be working. They'll be able to tell for sure after the next round in three weeks.

And, I can't resist posting another photo. I love how we both look like we are having such fun!

1959

In scanning and restoring family photos recently, one pattern that emerged was my Dad and brother dressed in similar outfits in a number of photos.

This photo is from Easter, 1966:

Just like Dad #1

This photo is also from 1966. I am somewhat obscuring my dad's outfit, but he's got tan shorts on.

Just like Dad #2

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Then there is this photo, clearly staged to show the identical outfits:

Just like Dad #3

I am sure the "just like Dad" dressing was orchestrated by my mom - but it's not something I noticed or was aware of previously. It's kind of funny and cute to see these photos all together.