• Jul. 19, 2006
My Dad - Update
As for my dad, we continued our Mayo Clinic appointments through May and June. Basically, his cancer has spread and looking at the bone scan we had done, he has a tumor growing on every bone in his body from his skull to his feet. Some areas there is just a slight indication of a tumor and other areas it is just everywhere. The largest areas are his pelvis, shoulder and spine. In hindsight this makes perfect sense since he has complained about his tail bone and shoulder hurting since last summer. We have seen a radiologist, and basically there is just way too much cancer to try and radiate. The dose he would have to have would likely kill him and since the major area is in his pelvis, radiating that area often causes all sorts of yucky problems with the surrounding organs.
Prostate cancer is rated from a one to a ten with ten being the most aggressive. My dad's score is a nine. At the end of May I seriously doubted he would still be with us at the end of the summer. He was barely walking and has lost about 35 pounds, with no desire to eat. Prostate cancer thrives on testosterone, so at the end of May the doctor gave him a shot of Lupron. It is basically a hormone treatment that puts his body into male menopause and causes it to stop producing testosterone. Because the tumors feed on testosterone, what it has basically done is take the source of growth away, which in turn takes the pain away.
From all appearances, it seems he has done well on the treatment. He is pain free and eating again. He still has no desire for food, and hasn't gained any weight back, but he is at least eating three meals a day again. We will return in August to test and see how he has responded to the shot. If he has done well they will schedule another one. The dosage he gets last for four months.
In mid-June we went back to have a C-T scan done of his abdomen for the radiologist. He has several lymph nodes with tumors and there was a question as to whether or not one of the lymph nodes was blocking the line from his kidney to bladder. If it was were were just going to radiate that one area, but it turns out it is not of grave concern at the moment.
However, completely unrelated to the cancer, we found out that he has two abdominal aortic aneurysms. Both of these are quite large and caught us off guard. My dad has had no symptoms of having these, so we were surprised. We have been to see a surgeon, and basically if he didn't have the cancer we would have them fixed. However, since it is quite a major surgery with a difficult recovery we are going to hold off until we get the results from how he has responded to his treatment. Statistically, if the doctors give him more than a year to live with the cancer, then we will look into possibly having the aneurysms fixed with a stent. If that is not possible, or if he has less than a year, we aren't going to do anything at that point.
Although this caught us off guard, it has really been the Lord's kindness that this was found. If my dad had had one of them rupture we would have had no idea what was happening. In many cases the person dies instantly, in other cases it takes up to three hours to bleed out. Many times when a person makes it to the hospital the rupture is misdiagnosed as kidney stones and by the time the rupture is found the relatives just say "fix it". In a lot of cases, and certainly my dad's, this would not be a good thing. Often, once a rupture occurs, a lot of damage has already been done and fixing it doesn't always make the most sense.
So there you have it. We go back to the doctor to see how his treatment is going on August 10th. One day before his 73rd birthday. I am not sure if he has a feeling about things or not, but he and my mom just returned from Texas where he was saying good-bye to relatives. We have no idea what the next few months will bring and as the surgeon put it a ruptured aneurysm is a much better way to go than prostate cancer. I am not sure what the Lord has, but we are in one day at a time mode for now.
Comments
• Jul. 19, 2006
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Posted by LittleEblingsAcademy
I was "Random Blogging" and came across your blog. I am sorry about your dad... Your family will be in my prayers.
I was reading your blog and saw that your dad has been in Mayo, so I got to wondering if you are in Minnesota. I looked at your profile and it says you are in the southwest.
It's been nice getting to know you this morning. Wishing you a blessed week!
In Him, Beckie
