Father-in-Law Continues to Make Progess

Well, it certainly has been a busy few days.  The net result of which is that my father-in-law continues to make good progress towards recovery.  He is amazing all of his doctors who had no idea he would be this far along this quickly.  On Sunday morning, he decided to pull his NG tube out.  This caused them to do the leaktest a day early and the result was that he was able to start clear liquids.  Doesn’t sound like much, but he did have a large chunk of esophagus removed.  Its a good thing that it was not leaking, otherwise they would have had to put that tube back in.

He is also able to walk around the halls a bit.  He says that this breaks up to boring time in the hospital.  He may have to go to a rehab hospital to get back into shape before going home.  This shouldn’t be for an extended period of time.

Father-in-Law is doing Awesome

My father-in-law is doing much better that anyone thought that he would be doing.  He has been sitting up talking to everyone for the last couple of days.  He is in a lot of pain, but he is pretty tough.  When he starts coughing is when it is the absolute worst.  But, the coughing is good because it will keep him from getting an infection in his lungs.

He has been acting rather funny.  He was trying to escape the second night he was here.  I think the pain medication was messing with his brain.  Now he is on something a little less stout and is quite a bit more coherant.  The doctors are amazed by his progress so far.  The tubes that have been connected to him are slowly going away.  As of this moment he only has one chest tube left.

The pathology report came back negative.  Sounds backwards, but this is actually a good thing.  The cancer has not spread to the surrounding tissues.  The doctor says this is wonderful, because this type of cancer is normally caught too late and has spread before treatment starts.

Success!!!

The surgery has been successful!  It was very complicated, but the whole thing went well with only a few minor difficulties.  At least the doctors said they were minor.  I always wonder if their definition of minor is the same as my definition of minor.  Oh well, that probably doesn’t matter now.

The surgeon says that he is pretty sure that all the cancer was removed.  The pathology report seemed to confirm that.  Of course, there is always the chance that it spread to areas that none of us know about.

Now the long road to recovery begins.  He will be in ICU for at least a week, possibly longer.  And that is assuming everything goes as planned.  He has all kinds of tubes and hoses running into him, which makes everyones anxiety level go up.  My sister-in-law passed out last night when she a saw him.  It will be a long road, but the doctors say he has a really good chance for recovery.  Lets hope it goes well.

Surgery Today!

My father-in-law will be having the surgery to remove that tumor in his esophagus in less than one hour.  The tension is getting pretty high.  On Monday, a CT scan was performed and the tumors showed no signs of having shrunk.  The surgery is very risky and is only complicated by the heart issues.  There is a good chance that he could die today.  I don’t normally pray, but I am making an exception for my wife today.

He is probably handeling this ordeal better that my wife, sister-in-law and mother-in-law right now.  He is just really anxious to get the show started.  I am not at the hospital with them, as they wanted some time alone, the whole family, before he goes into surgery.  I wasn’t very nervous about this before, but as the clock ticks further along I feel myself tensing up.  In fact, I woke up this morning with a horrible spasm in shoulder.

Well, I will post again soon.  Hopefully the news will be good.

The Epic Cancer Battle Gets Worse

My father-in-law is in the great battle with cancer.  It keeps evolving on an almost daily basis.  He had an EKG, which led to a heart cath procedure on Wednesday.  They found that he is in dire need of a heart bypass operation.  Just one problem.  The window for doing the cancer removal operation is almost up.  The solution is to have a team of cardiac surgeons standing in the operating room should his heart stop during the procedure.  Sounds like a great time.

I wonder if this doubles the cost of the operation?

Father-in-Law Update

My father-in-law needs to have surgery to correct a heart defect that was found during an EKG.  The original doctor referred him to a Cardiac doctor because of a problem with the EKG.  He looked at the results and actually thought that the position of his heart was causing an error on the EKG.  He was sent for a more extensive test and they find a defect in the heart.  It must be fixed right away, due to the fact that he is scheduled to have the tumor removal surgery June 10.  The window for having the tumors removed is gone if he doesn’t have that done at the time it is scheduled.  If he doesn’t have the defect repaired he will not be able to have the tumor removed as the operation may well kill him without the heart defect.  What a great Monday.

Countdown to Surgery

If you have read this blog, you know that my father-in-law has cancer.  Well, the surgery is set for May 29th.  So we are slowly making our way to this date.  I must say that the waiting is really grating on my family.  My wife and her sister are getting pretty tense about the whole situation.  My mother-in-law is still in this complete state of denial.  Its actually amazing to watch and if it was not my family it may even be humorous.  I don’t mean that is a disrespectful way at all.

One of the rather strange things that is happening is the amount of “advice” you receive from people who have no idea what is going on with the family.  It seems that is times like these everyone has a piece of advice for you, whether you want it or not.  I know that they are just trying to be helpful, but sometimes it does more harm than good.  So my wife is trying to shelter my father-in-law from outside influences for the next two weeks.  I don’t know how that is going to work.

This surgery is a pretty dangerous procedure.  It involves the removal of part of the esophagus and stomach.  The the whole thing is reattached with part of the intestine if I understand it correctly.  Amazing!  I had no idea that such a thing was even possible.  The crappy part is the recovery process, which goes on for weeks and weeks.  If you live through the whole ordeal, you get the pleasure of having more chemo.  This is why people should shut-up instead of giving their two cents worth.

Update on EC

It is the end of week 2 and my father-in-law seems to be doing rather well.  He has developed some trouble with swallowing, which is a concern.  He needs to keep his weight up and not being able to swallow well does hinder this situation.  He has been receiving wonderful care from his doctors and the various other medical personnel at the treatment location, so these problems are addressed immediately.

Last weekend, he did have a little problem when he didn’t realize that he had been receiving anti-nausea medication in his chemo treatments.  Since he has a chemo pump he was still getting the chemo, but evidently in order to get enough medication in the pump for the weekend it did not include the anti-nausea meds.  He was to take these in pill form and he waited until he felt sick.  This was the wrong plan.  He was very, very sick.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Cancer Treatment

My wife is a nurse and she is absolutely amazed at the treatment my father-in-law is getting for esophageal cancer. I am also. During the week he has two pumps that are pumping chemotherapy treatments into him constantly. On the weekends he has the luxury of only one pump. Apparently these pumps are dosing him with two different types of chemo at lower doses, but they are given all day long. He is also receiving radiation treatment two times per day. It seems excessive, but evidently you must be super aggressive with this cancer.

In one week he has been literally sucked of all his energy. This is the price of all this treatment. The scary part is that we have 5 more weeks until the break. I am worried about what the end of week 2 will bring us. It is interesting that so much focus is given to the cancer patients and survivors, but not as much on the family members or friends who help these people through these ordeals. My wife and her sister are absolute wreaks over this ordeal. My mother-in-law is in a deep state of denial. As the newest member of the family, I sit back and watch, trying to help wherever I possibly can. Cancer adds a huge responsibility to the family members willing to take it on. There is much worrying about holidays, birthdays, this appointment and that other thing.

The Cancer is Treatable

So we have spent about 24 hours in hospitals and doctors offices the past few days.  The culmination of this process is that the esophageal cancer is treatable.  The tumor has not penetrated the wall of the esophagus into the lymph and blood systems.  It is in a bad location and needs to be treated immediately.  So on Monday he starts chemotherapy and radiation treatments for 6 weeks to try and get the tumor into an operable condition.  If all goes well, there will be surgery to remove the tumor and affected tissue.  I don’t know much past this, but I am sure I will be fully educated soon.

My wife is going crazy.  She is a nurse and her father is sick.  If she doesn’t piss off every nurse and doctor we meet in the next 6 months I will be surprised.  I’m sure they understand and have seen this before.  The family, of course, looks to her to make the decisions about treatment and this puts some strain on her.  I get to be the support for the support person.  She has had numerous breakdowns of the past few days, as I suspect anyone in this position would have.