Thursday September 24, 2009 (Day 57)

BIG NEWS!

Daddy is coming home tomorrow, Friday 9/25!

Daddy has been doing very well with his physical, occupational and speech therapy. He's getting stronger each day and learning new and different ways to swallow his food so that he protects his airway. Once he's home Therapists with a Home Health Agency will be coming to work with him and I think a Home Health Nurse will come to check on him for a while. He will have a hospital bed, which will be delivered tomorrow morning and Mom will be bringing home a walker and wheelchair to help Daddy get around.

We were first told that Daddy was supposed to start Chemo last Friday or Saturday and that he would start Radiation on Monday. However; that of course did not happen. There has been some disagreements between the Doctors on what is the best course of treatment for Daddy. They all agree that Radiation Therapy is a must, so he did start radiation on Tuesday. He will have 34 treatments which will take him through the end of October. We are still not 100% sure if he's going to get Chemo or not. The Chemo that Daddy would have to take is very hard on the kidneys and the Doctors are not sure that Daddy could survive the treatments. They have talked about possible giving him a lower dosage over a longer period of time but that's still up in the air too. The Oncologist did say that statistically the surgery, followed by radiation and chemo has shown to be the most effective treatment for getting rid of all the cancer. If he can't have the chemo then his chances of being cancer free are greatly reduced. They may try chemo in a couple weeks, but only if Daddy is doing okay from the radiation treatments. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Daddy has lost a total of 44 pounds in the past 57 days and doesn't really want to eat. The bad thing is that he hasn't even had enough radiation treatments yet for that to be effecting him. We've been told that after a few weeks of treatments that Daddy will be severely weak, that his throat will be so sore that he won't want to eat and/or may not be able to. It's going to be very hard for him to keep his strength up if he can't eat. The Oncologist has talked about possible having to put the feeding tube back in and he wants it going through the side of his stomach instead of through his nose like before. Of course that will open the door for additional problems and possible complications and infections.

Daddy still has a long hard road ahead of him and it's going to take all of us to help Mom take care of him. Please keep Daddy and Mama in your daily prayers.

I know that Daddy would love to have visitors, but please keep in mind that even though he is being sent home, he's still weak and tires quickly. Please call and check with Mom before visiting to see what kind of day Daddy is having and if he's up for visitors.