Surgery ... Hospital ... Again

My dad's having surgery again. He goes in next Tuesday and will be there approximately 3 days. This time it's a surgical lung biopsy to see if we can finally, after three inconclusive bronchoscopies and biopsies, find out what these nodules in his lungs are and why they are growing. This is supposed to be a relatively "minor" major surgery but honestly? Dad never does anything small or normally. I'm praying that this will be a non-eventful surgery and hospital stay and praying even harder that they don't come back with news that begins, "Merci, I'm afraid I have bad news for you ..." Honestly, after the year we've had, I'm just not sure my mom and I can take it. But I'm hoping and praying for the best! It could still be aspiration infection ... that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Life in the Fast Lane

I haven't given up blogging, but I'm close. I just don't have time or the energy to relive all I'm living right now. Plus, keeping up my dad's caringbridge site drains me and once I've typed it all out, I'm just done. I don't mean that it drains me in a bad way - indeed, it's rather cathartic! And it's also an accurate day-to-day record of the ups and downs of life with a brain tumor and all that entails. It also gives me a record of the doctors - the heroes and the morons - and there are some of both. Today, there are more morons than heroes, believe me!

Quick recap, just in case anyone still cares ...

My youngest son turned 10 last week and had a sleepover of 5 boys from our homeschool co-op. FUN TIMES! Loved them all - happy when it was over. You know the feeling! They stayed up until 4 AM! And yes, I was encouraging them to go to sleep - but it was a "sleepover" and everybody knows you don't ever sleep at a sleepover. @@

Doctors, doctors, and more doctors, Three doctor appointments this week. Two screw ups at two of the three - the third is today. I'm praying we don't have a screw up today too because I'm JUST not sure I can take it. Doctor's office yesterday ... seriously, arrived at 3:15 for a 3:30 appointment. Was seen at 6:00! Left after 6:30!!! I finally had a melt down and when the doctor arrived she found me sobbing because I just can't take it anymore. I swear I'm going to buy a copy of The Doctor with William Hurt and give it to every single doctor in my life and tell them to WATCH IT before our next appointment or there won't BE a next appointment.

Today's appointment is with Dad and a cardio/vascular surgeon. Three biopsies on the nodules in his lungs? Non-diagnostic. Meaning they tell us bupkis. Nada. Zip. Zilch. So now they have to do surgery. Oh, and the third of those biopsies was done because the lap screwed up the 2nd biopsy and contaminated the sample. Nothing like waiting a week to see if you have metastisis in your lungs only to be told you have to go BACK to the hospital, repeat the biopsy, and wait ANOTHER week. And then the doctor got huffy with me for calling repeatedly to get the results on the day I knew they were in. Excuse me? I'm so SORRY that you're busy, Doc, but we've waited an extra WEEK that we shouldn't have had to wait ... take 5 minutes and make it right, 'K? Ok, blood pressure rising again ... must change subjects.

I have no other subjects. That's my life right now. Well, that and co-op which has been a really difficult week too as we interview potential new families and accept some while being unable to accept others. Heartbreaking, every minute of it. Stressful? You bet. Emotionally exhausting? Beyond description.

So that's where I've been and why I've just been too drained to relive it all on the blog - and had nothing inspirational to say. I guess I still don't. Maybe in time. Right now, I have to go and start and putting one foot in front of the other - again.

When Life Spins Out of Control

Ever feel like a sock in a washing machine? Or a cat in a dryer? Tossed about powerlessly while life spins around you? Yeah. That's kind of how my life feels from time to time and I guess this is one of those times. Again.

My dad had surgery March 11th to resect a brain tumor. Since then he's had radiation therapy and chemotherapy. His last day of chemotherapy was January 22nd. That's also the day we met with his oncologist to get the results of his latest MRI of the head and CT of the lungs. The MRI was fine. The CT was not.

He had some tiny lesions in his lungs and a biopsy done on October 14th last year. The results were "negative" but they warned us that they may be too small to accurately biopsy.

Last Thursday, we learned that those lesions have grown. All of them. By about a 1/3. And that their average doubling time appears to be 65-125 days. That's 2-4 months. So we need to do a repeat biopsy and see what's going on.

I hate this. Life is crazy. Next Tuesday, he's supposed to have an endoscopy to stretch his esophagus to hopefully aid his swallowing. But we're expecting an ice storm. Wednesday? We have an appointment with the neurosurgeon. And Friday is THE DAY. Again. And then ... we wait. Why does it take 4-5 days to get a pathology report back? Shouldn't something as important as "Yes, Mr. D., you have cancer," or "Good news, Mr. D, it isn't cancer, instead it's something simple," be important enough to RUSH? I think a word that has lost all meaning to the medical community is STAT. STAT is an abbreviation of the Latin statim, "immediately", often used in medical contexts. That's according to Wikipedia. However, I've been armpit deep in "medical contexts" for a year now and frankly? It's not used as much as you think it is. And all those shows like ER and Grey's Anatomy and House where decisions are made quickly and with the patient's heart in mind as much as their body? Pure fiction. It's true, we have some great doctors and a couple of them really care about the whole person. But by and large, you're a chart, you're a procedure, you're a note on the schedule. And they'll get around to notifying you if today is the first day of the rest of your life or not whenever they finish calling back all the other numbers that are also 4-5 days old.

This week is insane with doctor's appointments and at the same time, oh yeah, trying to be a wife, mother, and homeschool teacher. I can't help the sick feeling that my life is about to spin totally out of control - again - and there's not a darn thing I can do about it. I'll pray of course. But God never promised to turn down the spin cycle and I've lived it too much to expect Him to. He'll spin with me, but I really wish He'd just stop the merry-go-round so I could get off.