There is a reason I shouldn't make plans

I broke my own rule and now I am paying for it. Actually, lets start from the top, seeing as I failed to post anything when stuff happened.

First, my grandfather died, as we knew he would. I was in Eastbourne at the time, doing some work experience, but had tickets booked for Israel anyway, so off I went, about 3 days into the Shiva. I knew when I left Israel that it would be the last time I saw him, and I still don't have any regrets about that. Who knows, though, they might catch up with me. My biggest problems continues to be that I keep worrying that I am not taking advantage of the opportunities when they arise. However, I am learning that sometimes opportunities are there to be missed.

The short version of the story is that my father had another infection when they arrived in Houston. His haemoglobin is very low and his ammonia is very high. The doctors reckon that he his leaking blood from somewhere, because it doesn't seem to matter how much protein he eats or how much blood he receives, the haemoglobin doesn't rise. The oncologist described it as "like having a wheel on a car with a very tiny puncture that the mechanic can't find". The mechanic is him and his colleagues and at this point, their best advice is "just keep pumping up the air" i.e. the blood.

The problem is that he hasn't had any treatment for the cancer for weeks. And every time he has not been in treatment in the past, he has gotten stronger and sorted out his other health problems in preparation for another round of chemo/radiation/whatever. This time that hasn't happened. He has not gotten stronger, he has not bounced back and the doctors are not willing to treat his tumour when his body is so weak. And they are not seeing it improving.

So, in short, they are foreseeing treating his secondary symptoms but being unable to do anything about the tumour/s (there are many in his lungs that are becoming an increasing concern) for the foreseeable future. Now, I don't believe in miracles, and we all have to look at this realistically, so that our lives don't fall apart. Without treatment, the tumour will run rampant and we know what happens then. Obviously.

My brother reckons we shouldn't make any plans for Christmas (actually, he thinks we shouldn't make any plans for Thanksgiving, but I didn't have any anyway, so let's move on). My mum thinks that if anyone got pregnant at this point, my father would still not live to see a grandchild, but no one can say for certain, obviously. So I have a Devil's Timescale here, which makes it difficult to do anything.

So, things I didn't do in these last couple of months:

1. Be there when my grandfather died (horribly, I might add. From what I understand, it was quite hideous and he only stopped being in intense pain when they moved him to a hospice, less than 24 hours before he died. He didn't like the hospice either, but at least they could control his pain a bit).

2. See my parents for between the beginning of September and the end of October.

3. Get a job

4. Make any commitments that "my father is dying" wouldn't get me out of.

Things I did do:

1. Started a law GDL. Good for me and all that. It's hard work and I am getting seriously invested in it personally. Which isn't to say I can't easily drop out, but I would be miffed.

2. Got accepted onto a pro bono clinic. We have clients, who are real people, who really need our help. Not turning up would be frowned upon in more than one way.

3. Signed up to volunteer with an organisation. I can still back out at this point, but I have been waiting a year for the training.

4. Signed up for Mooting. Right now, that, again, is not a big deal, but it will be if I register properly.


As you can see, the Devil's Timescale makes it difficult to know what to do with all these things. If we are talking about 3 weeks, I should drop everything now. I will get my money back for part of the course (I think) and upset the pro-bono people, and I will have to start again next year, but that's the way it goes.

If it's 9 months then I will have finished the course but be doing summer work experience or something. Less of a concern.

If it's anything between now and six months from now and I don't know where, I will have to pray that they don't chuck me off the course and anything else I am doing.

So here is where I broke my rule. The rule is: DON'T MAKE ANY PLANS THAT MIGHT INVOLVE LETTING SOMEONE DOWN. I successfully did that for over a year and then I broke it big time by trying to grab the opportunities that came out of my course. Idiot. I should have let them pass me by. It hurts on a professional level, but personally it makes things easier.

But wow, look at me. I managed to whine about my commitments for a whole post and didn't stop to consider the important questions for a moment.

Should I drop everything (again) and spend all the time with my parents, bearing in mind I did that last year?

If not right now, when is the right time to call it? I don't have a holiday from my course now for another 6 weeks.

Should I quit my course now, before I get too invested, on the assumption that I will fail it on attendance anyway at some point, and at least now I will get my money back?

Are there any people whose needs are more important than mine right now? What is best for my parents/partner/grandmother/brothers?


I told some huge lies of omission to my grandmother last night. She had been ringing since mid-afternoon and my mother had been ignoring her and it was obvious that she wasn't going to go to bed before talking to one of us. So I was tasked. Side note: I should really have word with my mother about making me do her dirty work. It's not fair to sour my relationships with people because she doesn't have the energy to do it herself. If she calls someone with bad news, they understand. If I do it, I'm just cruel. This must stop. OK, back to our programme. I rang my grandmother and told her about my father's trip to the dentist, that he has been eating like a hellhound, and that he was in a fairly good mood. I failed to tell her about the unscheduled meeting with the oncologist and that his markers are at 20000. Luckily, she doesn't know how to get online, so I am safe. But I felt shitty about that. She needs to know eventually, even though she often makes things 1000 times worse than they were before we told her.

So there it is, incoherent, messy and unstructured, much like life. On the other hand, my law notes are beautifully organised. FML.

When it rains it pours

Sorry I have been absent for a bit. Basically here's the update:

We explained to my father very patiently that we were worried about his neurological symptoms. The walking funny, the non-repsonsive limbs, the talking in his sleep (which was making my mother completely crazy) and the lack of mental clarity. Eventually, we managed to convince him to get looked at a by a neuro-psychiatrist and have a couple of tests done. The next morning, as if by magic, his psychological condition massively improved. He was walking straight and confidently, he was talking sense and he was keen to go to work (literally, in the office and everything). He has more or less remained that way through the start of his new Chemo treatment (every two week, 4 courses, can be taken anywhere so long as it's in a hospital). They have also hired a new nurse who will start this week, I think. The only noticeable side effect of the new drug is that he is very tired and sleeps for many hours a day. I will let you know what happens with that.

Everything looked like it was ok, so I went home.

Two days later my mum rang. My grandfather (mum's dad) had rung earlier in the week, while I was still with them, to say that he was feeling very run down and so had gone for tests. What she was ringing to tell me was that his tests had come back showing that his body is utterly riddled with cancer. The irony is that there is a fairly good chance that it started off as pancreatic and then metastisised. One idiot doctor has given him 3 months. Maybe it is.

So I spoke to my grandfather yesterday and he seems very blasé about everything, which either means that he is the most Zen person on earth or he is in deep denial. I couldn't possibly guess. I am not as close to my grandfather as I am to other members of my family, which is probably what causes me to be most worried about my mother in all this. She now has both a father and a husband who are dying of cancer and my father's only comment is: "Well maybe you should start to think about what it is you are being punished for". Nice.

Still getting my head around everything. Will let you know how that works out for me.

Onwards and upwards

So my parents managed to make it across the big ocean and back to MD Anderson (after a mishap with a closed airport and not being allowed to leave). Supervising doctor is positive, although I am worried by my father's report, which was, "he is a stubborn one, but we broke him in the end". Yes, that's my parents all over. They will pummel you until you break.

He is done with the abraxin (the drug that was making him feel yucky in the current chemo) and is going back to more regular chemo. He has a session on Monday and then they are going to prep him for radiation, which probably sounds more exciting than it is. He is going to have radiation therapy every day for about 10 mins a day for 6 weeks, with weekends off, and then there will be about 2 months of nothing, while they wait to see if the radiation has fried everything. Then it's surgery to remove the dead cells, we hope, and then possibly more chemo. Fun.

In terms of dates, he is due to start radiation on the 25th of January and they are planning to leave Houston for sunny Thailand on the 7th March. My dad wants to spend his "time off" in Thailand, which makes me smile and shake my head. Then, in May sometime, they will be back in Houston and we will see from there.

I am probably planning to go to see them in Houston at the beginning of February. Maybe. They are still arranging their schedules.

I have absolutely nothing deep and meaningful to say about cancer or anything else today, as I am mostly spending my time looking up prices on flights. Did you know that it is half the price to fly return to the States than one way, even if you throw away the return half? Stupid airlines.

Chips are down, stakes are high. Now we play.

So, I have managed to drag my bum to Israel. My father looks ill and feels ill too. He is lucky that he has more hair than anyone I know, because it just looks thinner. And whiter. He is in a relatively good mood, or at least he was yesterday. My mother is just about coping, I think.

So, doctor news. My dad had a blood test and what I will call the Cancer Count is down. Good. It means that the tumour cells are dying. Problem is that he still feels shitty. Supervising Doctor seems to think that this is the chemo's fault. So the current recommendation is the following: After his 7th treatment (on Monday), if he doesn't feel better, he will come off the chemo, fly back to Houston and straight into radiation. That would bring us to the middle of January. Which is very fast. If he starts to feel better, on the other hand, he should continue with the chemo for the last dose.

I am at my grandmother's again, and feeling a little bit detached. Sensible Brother needs to talk to me about something that he can't say in front of other people. It could be completely unrelated, but something is clearly bugging him about my behaviour. Or something. I will know more soon, I hope.

Otherwise, we are still yo-yo-ing. One day I truly believe that this will all be over by Passover and that he will be fine. Other days I feel like the doctors are just making it seem better than it is and that people are just trying to protect us. Or me. Or someone. But no one is being protected here. Protection implies that someone is safe. None of us are safe without the Truth. With It, we are quite capable of protecting ourselves.

It was fun while it lasted

It's been a while since I posted. Sorry about that, kids. The main reason was that everything seemed to be hunky-dory. My dad is on his second course of chemo, and has his second treatment of four tomorrow. My parents went to a spa in Germany to chill out and had a wonderful time and I salute their creativity in coming up with the idea. He was swimming in hot springs and having massages and generally felt good. Until a couple of days ago. And now my mother is going mental.

So, two things happened. First, out of boredom, I suspect, my mother was having another look at the reports from his last set of tests and found the phrase "poorly differentiated". She rang to find out what it means, and I couldn't tell her, me not being a doctor and all that. We are still not sure (help?) but I am gathering that it means that the cancer is of the more agressive type. So what else is new? But she is upset, again, because the doctors seemed to have stopped speaking to her about it. This is the price you pay for being in different countries from your doctors. Also, maybe they believe that she is overreacting.

However, my father began feeling very unwell over the past couple of days and yesterday he began running a fever. And no one seems to be able to tell us why. He is almost two weeks past his last round of chemo, so it can't be a chemo reaction and fever usually means infection (she says with intimate knowledge of medical television programs). So my dad is feeling crappy and my mother is stressed out. And I feel guilty for not being there, again, because I thought they were all alone.

But lo and behold! Little Brother has arrived! I have prepped him, but I am not sure how good he is at dealing with the emotional stuff. I think he's more of a practical I'll-get-the-groceries-in type of bloke. And I don't think he is used to seeing his mother this distressed. It's one week before I see them, but that suddenly feels like an awfully long time.

I am going to call them, right now I think, to see what's what. It's nice that they are not in the entirely wrong time zone at the moment. The way my father is feeling now may inform my decisions about what to do next. Although, the way my mum is feeling, if she is right, my father may no longer be eligible for radiation by the time they get back to the US.

And that's why I haven't posted in a while. I was holding my breath, praying that the bubble wouldn't burst. Damn Hope and it's way of making you feel...well, hopeful.

Bum and arse. Stop the rollercoaster please. I think my dad looks queasy.

Today's the Day (apparently)

He's still feeling wonderful. This scares both me and Sensible Brother, who see this as an upset of the statistics. He, quite rightly, points out that, every time my father has seen a doctor, it has been bad news: "Oh, it can't be a tumour... it's a tumour", "There is a 70% chance it's not cancerous... it's cancerous", etc.

He had all the tests yesterday, and I was waiting for a text message to tell me what was going on, which they clearly failed to send. Bollocks. So I have to wait another 6 hours until they wake up, and then I will be told that they still don't know anything, so don't ask. What I do know is that they have a huge conference with the doctors today, so we had better bloody know something at that point.

I do quite fancy Paris at Christmas, though.

Gran has an "episode" and we don't really sleep at night

My dad feels marvelous. Psychologically, he feels as though the chemo has now ended and he can "feel" it leaving his body. This is, of course, bollocks. He now has a greater concentration of chemicals in his system than ever before. But if it makes him feel better, suits me.

But the wider impact is being felt, kind of. This story is slightly unrelated to cancer, but bear with me.

I went to stay with my grandmother yesterday. She has done her back in and has nerve pain shooting up her leg and up to her back. I went over to help her out. She went to an orthopedic specialist, who gave her some codeine based medicine (with caffeine) and a COX2 inhibitor. She's in pain, but is coping.

We went to bed at about 9.30 last night. At about 10pm, she came to my room saying that she didn't feel well. She had tightness in her chest and a heavy head. She was flushed but not hot. And her blood pressure was 205/77 . So we called her private emergency health people, who came and claimed that it was because she had forgotten to take her blood pressure meds and had OD-ed on the caffeine from the new pills. I don't buy it, but anyway.

They went away, she took the pills and went to sleep. She didn't want to wake my parents because she did not want my father to worry, which is how this ties in with the cancer. She still has very high blood pressure this morning, and the doctor says its the COX2 interacting with other stuff. Whatever. I am less than convinced, but don't have a better explanation as to why a woman's blood pressure would spike in the middle of the night. When I do, I will let you know.

So, in short, we are all feeling the burden of my father's illness in our own ways. My grandmother could be having a stress related reaction, although this seems unlikely. But I am beginning to feel a bit like a firefighter: you get one fire under control and another one starts somewhere else and you need to leave the first one unattended to deal with the second, and so forth.

Heading to Geneva on Sunday, which will be nice.

Otherwise, what are we doing? Oh yes, I almost forgot. Waiting.

So I'm not actually in Israel

Everything has been quiet for a few days. My father had his last round of Chemo yesterday, and I believe all went well.

My mother told me that she has been trying to contact the woman who recommended us to French Surgeon. He had treated her husband and that's how the whole thing came about. There had been radio silence for a while and then my mother found out that the man had died, which was why his wife was unavailable. And apparently French Surgeon knew this when we sat with him and never mentioned it. Nice. I won't dwell on it, because the two cases are very different, but it happened. So it goes.

I was supposed to go to Israel last night, but I put off my flight because I felt sniffly in the morning. Seriously. My father's white blood cell count was down yesterday at chemo, so his immune system is feeling a bit down in the dumps. The last thing he needs is someone coughing on him. I feel much better this morning, but I have rearranged my flight for Tuesday (£30 change fee, thank you BA!)

So I am still in London.

My mother just told me that the chemotherapy madness was even worse yesterday than when I was there. Apparently, there was only one nurse on duty for scores of patients, and, because my dad's nurse was not there, this one had no idea which treatment her needed. "Is it treatment one or two?" Cue my mother calling Doctor Friend, who came down and gave her the right prescription. But my father has been given two different treatments in the past month. So one of them MUST HAVE BEEN WRONG. Great. My mother and I are both losing faith in this hospital very fast.

Also, in the 14min conversation that I had with my mother today, she said that she thinks that I am far too willing to give up my dreams for the good of other people and that I should not be doing it. She is referring to bouncing back and forth to see my dad, but doesn't only refer to that. I told her about the project I am slowly cooking up to placate her, but, as usual, at the back of my head, I hear "27%!" So I sacrifice a year to my father. So what? As far as I know, I have a few more in reserve, which he may not.

Beh. Everything will be clear on the 1st. Maybe. Or Maybe Not.

"Cut me open, Doc"

We went to see a surgeon yesterday, who shall be henceforth known as French Surgeon. He is French. He said that he would be more than willing to operate on my father's tumour, providing that on the 1st of December the tests show that the spot on his liver has either shrunk or not done anything. So, we are praying. The selfish bit of me quite fancies spending the second week of December in Paris!

However, he also says that there is no point in operating on it if the tumour keeps metastisising ("spreading", for us laypeople). It will not prolong his life and would be pointless.

For one optimistic and completely unrealistic moment, I thought, "well, that means that in December or January he can have the surgery. Potentially French Surgeon will get it all out and then our lives will be back to normal. How weird would that be?" Then my mother reminded me that he would have at least 6 months of further post-operative treatment, even in the best possible case.

Ah, whatever. I am fed up of not looking towards any future at all. So even if I make them up, I feel that I am entitled to, as no one can possibly tell me that I am mistaken.

London tomorrow.

As a side note, I have been reading some blogs of people I barely know and am currently feeling better about the rubbish I post on here. At least my grammar is up to scratch!

Having a small attack of the Green Eyed Monster

I'm feeling a little bit resentful today. This is probably an ugly post, so avert your eyes if you want to maintain the illusion that I am a saint.

Ok, still with me? Right, so here goes.

Actually, I would like to precursor this with an introduction:

I was sitting with a friend a few days ago who said that her father had eosophogial cancer and she was reading my blog and ticking things off her list of how she felt, as the process was very similar. I was comforted by this and was really glad to have spoken to her. But here I am about to stray into a problem that most people probably don't have:

I am jealous of my parents. Not the cancer, of course. I am jealous of the fact that they only need to say "go" and tests are done and results obtained. The nurse who did my smear test said it would take 4 weeks and then they would send me the results by post.

I am jealous that my father got authorisation for a blue badge (disabled parking) last week simply because his doctor said so. Ok, so I think that the criteria are weird out here, and I am not saying he does not need one. But why did it take us 3 months, including an aborted trip to an inaccessible GP's surgery to be given the same consideration?

I am jealous because my mother wrote an email to a famous surgeon about my father's case on Wednesday at 7pm and by 8pm had a response from him saying that he would be happy to meet with them. And all because they had had an introduction from a woman whose husband was already a patient of his.

I am jealous because my father does not have to fight for the medication he needs with doctors who don't think that a particular drug is "necessary" and therefore refuse to represcribe it. He gets what he wants and needs without argument. Maybe that's because it's cancer and therefore my dad gets what he wants, when he wants because we may have many years to battle the system after his system has given up.

But, in short, I am jealous of the ease with which my parents seem to be navigating these waters. That's a terrible thing, because I would not wish their situation on anyone, but, on the other hand, it's not like my partner's impairment is a "nice" one which gives her or me all the energy in the world to ring government agencies 20 times a day.

Sometimes I tell Nay, "you know what? Sod the government. Let's throw money at the problem, because that will save us the aggro". But she soldiers on on principle, because it's important that people like us pave the way for people who are less able and less vocal. But sometimes I want to have a friend at the Department of Work and Pensions, at University College Hospital, at JobCentrePlus. Because what I am really jealous of is the grease that has been put my parents' wheels, the fairy dust that makes their passage through this seemingly blessed.

My mother complained that the blue badge was going to take a week to arrive. I laughed, then thought "now you know" and then almost strangled her. Wow, that's really ugly.

So remember, boys and girls, Cancer is not nice. But money and connections help. And always, ALWAYS, remember the poor sod struggling next to you and give him a hand up the step, if you at all can. And if you can't, you can always blame the DWP.

Out of touch

Being in London has one big drawback. I get updates once a day about how my parents are doing and I consequently feel guilty about not being there. That's not to say that anything is wrong, but so much goes on when I am there that I know that I am not getting all the news.

However, what I do know is that Evil Dissenting Doctor never got back to my mother, despite the fact that she was calling and emailing him every day. She finally managed to get a hold of him to ask him the important question of what to do about my father's blood sugar levels. My father has been on a low sugar diet for a very long time, as he has been trying to keep diabetes at bay. Now, with the new, low fat diet, his sugar levels have gone through the roof. Which is bad. So my mother rang to ask what to do. He said "ask your GP". She said "We don't have a GP here". He said "Oh, we must fix you up with one". My mother went ape-shit, seeing as she does not want a GP to give her advice when a GP would in no way be a pancreatic cancer specialist. So the ongoing Israel experience is not a good one.

Problem is, of course, that if my parents go back to Houston for the superior healthcare, they will lose the social network that they have in Israel. My mother also says that the guests have been coming far less this week, which is silly as this week my father is feeling better. In the first week after chemo, my father is supposed to feel like crap. In the second week, not so much.

Personally, I think I am pro them going back to Houston. It would only be a month now (slightly less even) and the care would be much better. But it's not up to me, as much as I can make my views heard. Also, I am worried about giving out opinions, because I know that these are things that my parents get quite enough of without me adding my voice to the hubbub.

Otherwise, nothing to report. I am keeping busy but I am almost waiting to go back to Israel to know what is going on. Gah.

This is Grand Central Station. Alight here for Cancerville

Dear God. They just keep coming. They come at all hours of the day and night, unannounced and expecting to be seen and talked to. The phone has not stopped ringing between the hours of 7am and 11pm for about 5 days, and even on the off-peak hours it's not guaranteed that we will have quiet. Do you think I can pay people to go away?

I have been told that I have to come and make nice. These people happen to be distant relatives, but still, I didn't invite them, so why do I have to be sociable? I don't like people, ok? Or, at least, if I do, I like them on my terms.

So I went upstairs, put some shoes on and did my hair. I am now more dressed up than I am for work. Then I get aggro from my father because people have turned up again who we weren't expecting. Yes, that's my fault, apparently.

But before this becomes too teenage angst-y, let's talk medicine.

Lovely Doctor who flew with me out of Houston has been calling almost every day. He rang today to say that, having thought about it, he is of the opinion that Evil Dissenting Doctor is wrong and was giving advice out of misinformation. Even though he is a pulmonary oncologist and not a pancreatic one, he has seen all the documentation on my father's case, which Dissenting Doctor apparently did not. Fine.

I am still of the opinion that we have a case of too many cooks here and that they are all simply depressing and confusing my father. Who, by the way, is very chirpy, even without the legal weed that they told him he could have. Seriously, they are going to come to our house and roll him marijuana, on doctor's orders. And it's the good stuff too, they say.

In any case, I am feeling a bit put out, because I didn't sign up to look after all of my father's friends. It's as if they need emotional support. They turn up and shake their heads and thank god it's not them. But that's the cynic in me. So long as it helps him, I will serve coffee. In fact, I will serve 20 cups of coffee an hour, I will wash the dishes, I will clean the house top to bottom and be general slave labour so long as I don't have to sit and smile.

So what do I do instead? I bring up the Stamford Prison Experiment of 1971 and kill the conversation. Hopefully my parents will get the gist and send me upstairs to the computer. He he. Evil me.

I would like to take a poll. I wonder how I do that... ah ha!

Would you rather hear more medical stuff, or more emotional rantage?

Give me wonderful medicine and drugs. Definitely drugs.

I want to hear the details of your thrilling psychological state. Bring on the meltdown!

Other

Please Specify:

ugg boots

So yes, I am making this interactive now. Like Choose Your Own Storybook, only Choose Your Own Blog. Kinda.

Good luck!

Chemo Stories

Yesterday was intense. I ended up in bed at 8pm. That intense.

Basically, chemo goes like this (anyone who doesn't know my famous blog-by-schedule is about to discover it!):

6:45am - Get up. Find relevant computers, get dressed, brush teeth.
7:15am - Grab a slice of bread with cottage cheese
7:30am - Leave for the hospital
7:45am - My mother realises that she has left all the medical notes at home. I get out of the car and hail the first cab.
8am - Cab arrives back home.
8:02am - Cab on the way to hospital again, with medical notes
8:30am - I struggle into the ward. My parents are waiting in reception
8:31am - I realise that I dropped my phone in the cab
8:45am - The cabbie picks up my phone after I have been ringing it compulsively. He says he will bring it back to me.
9:30 - We are still sitting at reception. Evil Dissenting Doctor comes by and chats to my dad. For an hour.
10:30 - My dad is shown into a room with a bed in it and no windows. He is hooked up to some saline and some preparatory fluid. No chemo yet because they have not finished preparing it in the lab.
11:30am - Lovely nurse comes in to say that still nothing has happened. We eat some sandwiches. My phone arrives with the cabbie. My parents begin to call in the big guns, best friends of the doctors, heads of the hospital. You know, the big guns.
12:30pm - The drugs arrive. The ward shuts at 3pm, so they now have 2 1/2 hours in which to give him the drugs that would usually take 6 hours. The drip is moving really fast.
3pm - The drip finishes and we are packed out. My dad has chest pains, so is ushered into a doctor's office to check him out.
3:30pm - There is nothing wrong with him.
3:35pm - Dissenting Doctor's Nurse wants us to come up and have a chat.
4:45pm - We leave the hospital
4:50pm - We get stuck in traffic
5:15pm - We get home. My father gets into bed.
5:25pm - My grandmother arrives
6:30pm - My grandmother leaves my dad to sleep and I take her to eat burgers.
8pm - I come home and collapse.

So, relevant details. Firstly, Israeli hospitals are just like any other. They are brightly lit with lights that hurt my head. They have no windows, they are busy and they are harsh. Overall, not a nice place to be. They have promised that it won't take so long to get the medication next time, which my dad is pretty pissed about.

Otherwise, my father feels fine. His pain suddenly dropped off yesterday, which truly makes me think that it was from the endoscopy. He was feeling weak yesterday, but this morning my parents went for a walk. So good.

My grandmother, however, is having a hard time. She wanted to come to the hospital yesterday, and my parents fobbed her off. I don't know whether this is right or not, but they had decided that they did not want her there. So she feels as if she is being sidelined. Nice. She has a lot of hurt feelings right now, as if no one wants her, and, frankly, it's not in my power to rectify this. It's quite hard enough dealing with all the fraught emotions on this side of the family without having to think about who is feeling left out. Nerves are raw, and everyone is trying to peer through the glass, which is so dark at the moment that the frustrations are high. And when you can't blame it on god or on the fates, blame it on each other. So we are all carrying a little bit of blame inside, which we are carrying for everyone else. And that, kids, is called sharing.

On a side note, I would just like to make it clear that this blog is my personal thoughts. It does not reflect or pass comment on anyone's experience but my own. By definition it is deeply subjective. And it's the best way that I have right now to communicate any thoughts or feeling that I may have. It is not meant to cause offense. It is not meant to provide accurate data about my father's conditions. It is not meant as a judgement nor is it meant for judging. I am grateful to everyone who reads it and just wanted to make that clear, so that no one gets upset or angry. Really, I would like to keep those emotions off the blog entirely. If we can.

Israeli Angst

Things are tough out here. When this kicked off, I didn't think it was relevant, so I didn't blog about it, but suddenly it is, so let's go back a tick.

When my parents arrived in Israel last week, they went to see the doctor here that would be in charge of my father's treatment for the next few weeks. Now, he is still under the care of the nice folks at MD Anderson, this guy is just like the local rep.

However, we all know doctors. They have to give an opinion. And the opinion was this: "You are wasting your time on the chemo. The tumour is growing every day. If you don't have it operated on now, you are giving yourself a death sentence."

To begin with, my mother said, "I knew it!" and my father said, "If I want more opinions, I'll ask for them", but slowly things began to change.

They are still going with the MD Anderson opinion, because, as I said, it's like standing in the supermarket queue which you think looks shorter and keeping on switching. It doesn't work. But my father has had the fight just blown out of him. I think he is scared that whatever he does now, if he dies, some doctor will have the satisfaction of saying, "Well, yes. He didn't listen to MY advice". Opinions are cheap. The consequences of them cost the world.

So we are off to chemo this morning, and my father is feeling a bit crappy, psychologically. He was trying to convince my mother of a suicide pact a couple of nights ago. So, my job has now been clarified to me by my mother: Endless optimism. I am to tell him that everything will be fine, find stories of people who have survived, find amazing friends and family who can tell him how good the doctors are. Which is why this blog is useful. With all that optimism, my head might explode.

Until now, I have felt a bit like a fish out of water around here. I have discovered, though, that one of the most useful things I can do is washing up! So I do that a lot.

Seven hours of chemo. We are going to go through photos to make into an album for my grandmother. But I am thinking that I should have brought a deck of cards.