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.

I really didn't miss the hospital

I am writing this on my phone in one of the public areas of MD Anderson. My parents were in Bangkok and had to fly back as a matter of urgency. Why? Because in the space of a week my father's test results tanked. He had very low haemoglobin, albumin, and other bad things and was sleeping 20 hours a day.

So off they flew for 26 hours, picking me up in London on the way. We drove straight to the ER on arrival and, after 8 hours and 3 tests, my father was admitted and has been there ever since (monday).

He has multiple system dysfunction which is causing pain, fatigue, confusion and a scary amount of fluid to build up in his abdomen. The question, though, is why.

We have now had opinions from 4 oncologists. 1 believes that it's a blockage of his portal vein. This is problematic and potentially serious but not time critical or cancer-related. Doctor 2 is hoping that it was an infection in the fluid which will go away now that he is on antibiotics. Doctor 3 thinks it's the cancer that is spreading to his spleen and that he could do everyone a favour by dying faster and not wasting anymore time and resources. Doctor 4 thinks patients are idiots and should only be interested in treating the symptoms rather than the problem. Overall, I am thinking of taking a sledgehammer to the lot of them.

He's had the fluid drained as is feeling a bit better, but he will be staying in hospital until they bloody find the cause of the problem. In the meanwhile, the tumour is acting oddly in that it is changing shape and no one knows why. His brain is clear, which is nice to know.

And, oddly, what I have noticed most over the last few days are the number of child patients kicking around the hospital. Now, cancer is horrible at any age but to see patents with their 5 year-olds waiting in radiation is one of the most heartbreaking things I can imagine. Sod pancreatic cancer. It's the cancers that kill children that we need to eliminate as quickly as possible. Because right now, there is no justice in this world.

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