Fears we are near the end....

Today they did a Doppler kidney test on my dad to see what the hell is going on with his kidneys. He's had pretty much zero urine output for the past 2 days. The doctor said his digestive system is shutting down - My aunt said he has been belching up the Ensure all day today. My mom is staying overnight with him and after my doctors apt. in the morning I am going to go up and stay overnight with him.

He has had several visitor's during this hospital stay - Thanks to everyone who has visited my dad. It mean a lot to me.

The hospital has WiFi so I am going to take my pc up with me so I can keep the blog accurately updated.

Please keep us in your thoughts.

Still in The Woodlands Hospital

Here are a few things that have happened yesterday and today.....

1-Dad's bladder is not draining, so they decided he needed another catheter.
2-Dad had some kidney stones pass when the placed the catheter in.
3-Today they are doing a few ultrasound's one on his kidneys and one on his bladder.
4-Still waiting on the pathology report to determine if the nodules on the diaphram are cancer.

I love The Woodlands hospital. They seem to be very thorough and the environment is much better that at NE Hospital. My dad is very very weak which makes it hard for him to get up and down. I have really checked out this week since my mom's sister (Aunt Barbara) has been helping. It has been nice to have the help so I could run some errands and try to get some of my studies in order. That is still not going to well, my concentration is not where it should be. I have a doctor appointment in the morning and then I plan to head over to stay overnight with my dad. I should have a better picture of what is going on and will blog about it then. Till then please continue to send us your good thoughts, we need all of them right now.

Thanks to everyone who read the blog!

Surgery Was Successful

My dad made it through the laporoscopy surgery and the feeding tube was successfully placed back into my dads stomach. The doctor said it is possible that my dad will be released today, but we will see. He has to make sure my dad's intestine's are gonna work properly.

The doctor also said he had some bad news to deliver. While he was inside he saw new nodules on my dad's diaphragm, I counted at least 16. He said that with my dad's chemo therapy these news ones should not have shown up. He said that my dad's body is eating away at its on muscle since he is so malnourished from the cancer taking all of the calories. In a round about way he said things are not good.

G-Tube Issues & another Hospital stay

Today I met my mom over at Dr Field's office at 10:30. He tried to insert my dad's G-Tube in the office and said he wanted to get an X-ray to ensure the tube was in the right place. Well we walked over to The Woodlands X-ray and got an X-ray and hustled back to Dr Field's office. Once there he came out and said it was in-conclusive. So we had to hustle back over to the hospital for another X-ray and a CT Scan. Dr. Field came out and said the tube did not make it to the stomach so they are admitting him to try laporoscopy surgery and if that does not work they will have to open him up. Either way they have to put him under so we run the risk of him not waking up since his body is so frail. We also were warned that infection may set in since his stomach has been leaking, and the possibility of internal damage from the leakage as well. He just went back to srugery and we hope for good news. He will be here at least 2 days, I'm just glad we're in the Woodlands.

Released Yesterday and back today....

1:21 p.m. - Well mom just called and said that they sent my dad home. No X-ray to see if anything is wrong. No feeding tube in - so my dad can actually be fed.....
The last time I spoke with Dr Fields office they said on the end of the tube was a balloon and if my dad pulled the tube out don't you think he has a hole in his stomach? I know your body is amazing and it heals itself but this just does not sound right. So my mom has to call Dr Fields office in the morning to see what we are suppose to do.

12:52 p.m. -My mom just called to give me an update. I swear this whole incident with my fathers health and seeing the way things work is clouding my dream of wanting to become a nurse. Why? Listen to this..... Mom said that one doctor came in earlier and said they MIGHT have to do an X-Ray to see if the feeding tube had caused any damage or to see if any thing was leaking out of his stomach. No X-ray was completed but a doctor came in and just tried to stick the feeding tube back in. No pain medication at all. My mom said my dad finally grabbed his hand and said he told him to stop because the pain was to much to handle. So the doctor laid the feeding tube down, asked who did the initial implant, and walked out the room. I mean come on? How much more pain do they expect this man to handle? I'm just sick about it. More to come.


1045 a.m. -Yesterday around 5pm my dad was released from the hospital. He was giddy about sleeping in his own bed. I called my mom last night to check on him and she said he was up, in the living room watching a movie with her. That was a nice change.

This morning around 9:30am my mom called and said they were on their way to the hospital. Last night my dad must have caught the tube on something and pulled it out. She said he went on back to sleep but when he woke up he had blood all over his shirt. So she called the doctor and they said to bring him in.

My parents are now in The Woodlands Emergency Room waiting to be seen by the doctor. More to follow.

Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital Sucks

I don't think I can say it enough so I will say it one more time, Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital Sucks. I wonder if what happened today has happened to anyone else when a loved one is at the hospital or is it just this one.

Today I went up to relieve my mom at around 11. They decided not to release my dad today, they want to do some additional tests on my dads kidney's.

They started giving him so medication that is helping lower his potassium level and this medication really messes with your ability to hold your bowls. After having an accident and messing himself all over, I told the nurse and asked the cleaning lady to please come in and clean.

I went ahead and cleaned my dad up and was walked all the soiled linens to a drop and saw the cleaning lady walking off and I caught her. She said she was going to go to lunch and she would be back. I told her, nope I don't think so and she cleaned my dads room then. This happened about 5 additional times today in which I had to clean up the mess even though I told the nurse it needed to be cleaned. So you can imagine how humiliating that must be for my dad. Then about 1 I figured I had better give my dad an ensure since no one came in to feed him all day. They still brought trays of food even though we told them he will not eat it. So pretty much they were letting my dad starve. They also were not coming in to give him his inhaler or breathing treatments. Why? Not freaking sure. They are doing a 24 hour urine sampling on my dad so they have his urine on ice in the bathroom. Well all the ice was melted by 4, so I had to re-fill it with ice even though they said they would do it - and never did. One of my dad's LVN's was supposed to come back with a depends and to clean up my dad...well this bitch never showed back up. She showed up about 2 hours later asking how many bowel movements my dad had. I told her and then I just had to say "Oh don't worry about cleaning him up, I did your job for you." I mean come on. If that was her dad she would be pissed if someone just forgot about him. On top of that when my dad got up to go to the bathroom I noticed his sheets needed changed so I went ahead and stripped the bed and asked for clean sheets.

I just think this is WRONG! No one should be treated that way. I know I am more protective of my dad since this has been going on - but I'm not wrong for feeling pissed off at this hospital. RIGHT????

The last report was my dad's kidneys are functioning at 40-50% and they are still saying he is not a candidate for dialysis. They are running some more test on his bladder and kidney to determine a course of action. A physical therapist came in to discuss PT at home and my dad was interested.

So tomorrow I am going back up at 8:30 so my mom can go home to meet up with some of her sisters and they are going to help her clean house and mow the lawn. I hope my dad gets released tomorrow so he can go home. He is just more comfortable there and he gets better care from my mom and I.

Hard Decision's To Make

My mom called me tonight and said the renal doctor came in with an update. He said basically there is nothing they can do to help my dad at this point. He said the renal damage has been caused by my dad's high blood pressure over the years and I assume with the recent chemo it has really brought this to light. He said he is not a candidate for dialysis yet but possibly in the future. So at this point they said we really need to make some decisions about what we want to do in the future. Do we or do we not continue Chemo and let the cancer take its course. They are talking about letting me dad out of the hospital tomorrow. This is just to much. I mean how do you sit down with your loved one and ask them if they are ready to die?

Today was HORRIBLE

Well we started out at 845 at Dr Suki's office for another blood draw. Two hours later we were still not able to get chemo due to a high creatinine level and potassium level. They asked us to follow up with Dr Pandya and so on and so forth. I had to place a hault and say, something is not right. He is talking out of his head again and something does not seem right so they rushed around and decided he should see the doctor again. Around 11am they hustled us back to a room to wait over 2 hours for the doctor to come in and get orders for a hospital stay. The Sub-Doctor (Dr. Suki is out of town) said my dad's kidney functions were not good and she wanted him to see a nephrologist. One of my dad's nurses took me aside and showed me my dads blood work and said his urine was not toxic yet, but that he was in renal failure. So then around 1:30 we headed over to NE Hospital for yet another hospital stay. After Dr. Suki's office told us we had a room/bed ready as soon as we showed up - what do you think they said. We don't have a room. Urg! How many times can this happen.... Around 5:30 my dad was placed in a room but not in the unit they asked him to be admitted to. They wanted him in IMCU and they placed him on a regular floor. I completely lost it today with this hospital and this will be the last stay we have there EVER!!! During the admission process I had to call Matt and ask him to e-mail over a list of my dad's medication. I watched the lady print a copy, make a copy for my mom, and add it to his admission packet. Then when the nurse popped in and asked for a list of all his meds I told her, we already did that and to find the copy....another nurse came in and asked where a list of his meds are. Finally I said why is this our responsibility...you have it find it. I also sat out in the hall and answered over 15 minutes of questions they asked me about my dad's health and when the nurse switched duty, she tried to ask me some of the same questions. I don't know if she is to lazy to look in the computer but I told her, we already answered all those questions and to basically look in the computer. Then when we told the nurse he was supposed to be admitted to IMCU she actually asked "well why is he not there." I almost flipped my shit. I told her "You tell me." I don't think she liked that very much. I felt like an awful person for getting so frustrated, but enough is enough. Then when I am about to leave this nurse, which I am not so found of stopped I guess to give us a "PEP TALK" She told us that my dad was very sick. We needed to start thinking about my dad's quality of life and we needed to start making the hard decisions about what to do. How dare her... We know this shit. I just don't even think it was her place to start lecturing us. She did not have a kind spirit this time nor the last time we had her as a nurse. I thought people were nurses because they like to help people and they care about people. You find out - that's not so. So now they are talking about moving my dad to the cancer part of the hospital or to IMCU.

I also had to scramble around to get 3 people and a notary to meet me at the hospital in the morning to finish out my dad's will. I was successful in doing so and I am so thankful to all the folks who dropped everything to say yep I will be there, no problem at all.

I hope all goes well in the morning and for now I need to try to settle down and go to bed. It's going to be a big emotional day tomorrow.

The last call from my mom last night was to tell me my brother had been arrested and my parents truck was impounded. So yet another mess to clean up for him. Jail is the best place for my brother anyway, just might get his ass clean. That remains to be seen.

So we try again tomorrow....

Monday and Tuesday show my dad's Creatinine level to high so he could not take the CHEMO so we are going to try again tomorrow. Three days in a row, 3 vials of blood. What does that mean:

Creatinine is mainly filtered by the kidney, though a small amount is actively secreted. There is little-to-no tubular reabsorption of creatinine. If the filtering of the kidney is deficient, blood levels rise. As a result, creatinine levels in blood and urine may be used to calculate the creatinine clearance(ClCr), which reflects the glomerular filtration rate (GFR). The GFR is clinically important because it is a measurement of renal function. However, in cases of severe renal dysfunction, the creatinine clearance rate will be "overestimated" because the active secretion of creatinine will account for a larger fraction of the total creatinine cleared. Ketoacids, cimetidine and trimethoprim reduce creatinine tubular secretion and therefore increase the accuracy of the GFR estimate, particularly in severe renal dysfunction. (In the absence of secretion, creatinine behaves like inulin.) - Thanks Wikipedia.com

So either this means my dad is not getting enough fluid or his kidney's are not doing a good job filtering Creatinine. That's the last thing I want to hear....I used to think the heart is the most important organ in the body but after studying A&P I think it's the kidneys. Once those start failing all is lost. So they gave my dad another night of fluid and I gave him 2 bottles of water in his tube today and I hope that helps. I just hope he is able to do the CHEMO tomorrow.

And after all that I had to ask my brother to move out of my parents house FOR MY MOM and that did not end pretty. I will spare you all the hurtful things my brother said to me so you won't hate him. He will someday realize the hurt he has caused and I hope he will be able to live with himself after he is clean and sober.

Asking for help is Frustrating

Just when you think the door is open, it's slammed in your face. I hope none of my family or friends ever have to deal with what my family is going through right now. I am emotionally exhausted not to mention physically.

Here is my beef: I called my dad's insurance company and they gave me some hope. They told me they would pay for home health to come out for about 4 hours 5 times a week. That would be perfect, Mom could still work 1/2 days and have someone come out and watch dad for 1/2 day. So I picked up the phone to call some home health agencies that would come to Splendora. When I called here came the door....They told me even though my insurance company says they will pay that they won’t and they don't. She told me she was sorry to be blunt but she had been through this time and time again. They submit for reimbursement and BCBS only pays the minimum and then the patient is stuck with the bill. SO that door was closed and no help was on the way.

My friend gave me a connection to Houston Hospice so I called this morning. The lady was so nice and they offered a lot of help, still not the help we need but at least it was something. Then the door closed.....we only come out once the person has exhausted all treatment options. Basically I got the jist of once everything else has failed and they are going to die, that's when we help. My dad's doctor is still moving forward with chemo and has not said he is going to stop. So that door was closed and no help is on the way.

I feel so helpless. My mom and I are they only one's taking care of my dad and we are tired. We need help someone who can come out and stay with my dad at least 2 days a week for at least 8 hours. You can't find that kind of help anywhere. Are we asking too much? What do people do who have family members who are in need of supervision but do not want to make the move to a care facility. I guess they think you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Now don't get me wrong, you can really find that help but that help cost an arm and a leg. Cancer is expensive and that is already eating away at my parent’s money. I help them as much as I can but I can't go into debt either trying to help. That would break my dad's heart.
I just wish my dad could count on his son and his other daughter to provide the help that my mom and I do. DO they not remember our dad busting his ass every day to put food on the table, quite frankly to give us everything we needed? He never complained. His day was always wonderful. I miss those days.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

My dad is about the same. We are still feeding him through a tube and doping him up as much as possible. He sleeps about 20 hours a day. Nothing much to report.

I am on the verge of finding the highest mountain top and screaming "FUCK YOU COLON CANCER, YOU STOLE MY DAD AND I HATE YOU FOR THAT."

Tuesday, 7/15/08

My dad saw Dr Suki yesterday and actually gave us some good news. He said that the tumors are shrinking a little. I can't remember what test he said they could do but the results show it went down from 8.7 to 8 so that is some good progress. He also said since my dads weight is fluctuating that he is going to get home health come out and set up a pump that feeds him all night. We will see how that works.

My dad's company said they were going to keep him on full pay and full benefits until chemo is over but yesterday when I called his HR department they said they could no longer do that since it is going to be a while. I just wish they had not given my mom false hope. Now they are going to send my mom some paperwork on short term disability and get that going. He will still have benefits but he will have to pay for them.

I am going out tomorrow to take care of him since mom will be working all day tomorrow, so I will be able to give more of an update on his progress.

He has good weeks and bad weeks. The days following chemo are horrible, then you see him start to get a little better and then off to chemo to feel bad again. It's suck a whirlwind of emotions.

Dad's brothers and sisters w/o Jessie

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Thursday my dad went to see a urologist and the news was not so great. Honestly I wish I could tell you all the stuff Dr. Pandya told us but it was just to much. I did catch on to him saying that the tumors looked as if they are increasing a little and not shrinking. He also has a permanent catheter which he is not happy about and I don't blame him. We have another Dr visit with Suki on Monday so I hope to get some more answers then.....we will see. If you don't know the right questions to ask you don't get all the health information you need to make informed decisions.

On a more positive note my dad's family drove in from Arkansas to visit him and have the annual family reunion at my parents place. Even though my dad was really sick he was still able to see his house full of his family. When we had to tell my dad he was not able to travel per doctors orders he almost cried. So when we were told his family was coming down...we cried out of excitement for him. The day was just perfect and it was amazing to see everyone. See our picture.

Tuesday, July 8th 2008

I met mom and dad over at Dr Suki's office for chemo today. Mom went on to work and dad and I stayed for chemo. He was done around 1pm today so I took him on home. He is still not eating and his only source of food is the Ensure we feed him through his tube. I also try to make sure I put at least a few bottles of water in him a day to prevent dehydration.

As for now Dr Suki said he thought the tumor's were shrinking but can't say 100% until another PetScan is done.

Tomorrow dad has to finish up with his last chemo treatment and then on Friday we are off to Marvell, Arkansas for the annual family reunion.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

It's been a quiet week. Dad is still trucking along. He is still very tired, weak, and sleeps as much as he can. He has chemo next week and still is wanting to go to Arkansas for his family reunion. I don't think it's a good idea for him to travel but he wants to see his family, so I can't argue with that.

Dad was able to go to the dentist today and get his dentures re-aligned so now they fit. We are hoping that this will help him want to eat now. We will see.

So that's about all.... no news is good news right now.