September 24
Well, Dad seems to be holding his own for right now.
Yesterday I took him to the library. We stayed there fifteen minutes, and he found about 8 books. This has been his only outing in the past two weeks--chemo makes him too tired to do much more. It was a big effort to go, even though the library is only about 10 minutes away, and it wiped him out for the rest of the day. But he insisted, and now has the good companionship of words--enough to last a few days.
Dad’s a voracious reader. Always has been as long as I remember. He reads everything, but his favs are history, military stuff, science, political things. I am so glad he loves to read; he can sit for hours and finish a book now that he has time to.
Reading is something my parents instilled a love for in me. My mother read to me every night before bed--usually poetry. Every Saturday Dad would take my brother and I to the base, and if it was summer, we’d go to the library and go swimming. Winter, it was the library and the ice-skating rink. The library back then was a three story brick building, and I’ve never seen to this day so many books crammed into that much space. To the left of the library, and attached to it, was the children’s section. It too, had thousands of books, and it’s own card catalog. (This was before the digital age) There was never a limit on how many or what subject I could get. I remember Dad saying to me one time (at the library) “you’re just like your mother in a dress shop.” Being young then, I didn’t know how to take that comment, but now I realize what he was saying.
Well, Dad is finished with his radiation now. That was a few months ago. Now he taking his chemo, Gemzar. That’s going in via a permanent tube in his chest, and he goes once a week for two weeks, then has a week off. He’s reacting to it well, in that it does not give him nausea, and he’s able to keep down all the food he takes in. (Which is not much--he has zero appetite.)
Since his cancer is inoperable, all his treatment is palliative. My Mother asked his Oncologist last week how long he will be receiving chemo, and he said until the tumor begins to grow.
When he was first diagnosed in May, the doctor explained to us that the scan showed a 4cm mass that was malignant, and it had invaded the artery and vein above the pancreas. Because it was in the body and not the head of the organ, they couldn’t do a Whipple procedure, where they can take the cancer out. I asked him about lymph node involvement, and he said because the cancer had invaded a major artery and vein, that superseded any lymph node involvement as far as metastasis goes.
My boss, a lady I greatly admire and think very wise, gave me this advice. Her mother had cancer, and survived it many years before it returned. When she and her family knew they had not much time left, they lived each day, and did not look beyond it. They made it as much fun, as full of laughter and love as they could. Do the same with your Dad, she advised.
I am trying. I still have this little cloud of sadness and impending doom that hangs above me everywhere I go, but I am looking for the good things, the bright side, the things to be thankful for every day--sometimes I have to stop and enumerate them at every hour to have the strength to go on for another hour that day.
