Monday, July 24, 2006

And the news just keeps on coming....

It's only 11am and I'm ready for this day to end! While writing my post about Tiffany's passing the phone rang again. I swear I'm going to smash that thing into a zillion pieces! It was D letting me know that my MIL has finally made the decision to stop her dialysis treatments. She told her dr last week that it was nearing the end. He admitted her to the hosital so they could see if they could help her with some problems she was having...that maybe it wasn't necessary to make that final decision. She decided last night that there was to be no more. She's suppose to be put into Hospice care today. Her dr told her that she could survive 1 - 3 wks without dialysis. Her last dialysis session was Friday.

I don't blame her for making the decision and I totally support her in it. She's one of the toughest ladies I know. She's fought through a LOT of medical stuff that would've made other's give up a long time ago (breast, skin, and colon cancer, bypass surgery and too many heart attacks to count, and dialysis for over 8yrs. The doctors gave her a diagnosis of 6mos to live....3yrs ago.

As is normal a part of me wants to be selfish and say FIGHT!...Fight some more! BUT I won't. I know she's fought as much as she possibly could. She's at perfect peace with her decision. Her spirit during all this have been amazing. Tom of course is having a bit harder time being unselfish with this. I don't blame him, no one wants to lose a parent.

I'm not sure how my FIL will fare during all of this. He's battling his own medical demons with the AML and a chemo depressed immune system. I actually find myself praying more for him during this whole thing then anyone else.

I'm holidng my breath not wanting the phone to ring again. At this moment my dad is seeing a pulmonary surgeon. He hasn't felt right since his 2nd bypass surgery last June. The drs kept telling him it was normal, the 2nd time is harder on the body. He's mad because he feels worse then before he went in for his surgery. He didn't want to do the surgery in the first place because he didn't feel sick. We "talked" him into doing it now before his body got weak from the problems the bypass could fix NOW.

He's had a touch of pleurisy on his right lung and now it's gone into the left and center of it. They also mentioned a nodule on his left lung. I know he's thinking of his brother who died 10yrs ago from lung cancer. HOw can he not.

I don't think I can handle one more piece of bad news. I don't want to answer the phone anymore today. I just want to go find a cave and hibernate for a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

The phone rang before I could hit publish. My dad made out ok! They don't think the nodule is a tumor but a pocket of thick fluid. They'll make an appointment to drain some fluid off and examine it. If the nodule shrinks it's definitely fluid and not a tumor. If the fluid thickened he may need to be admitted and have the fluid suctioned off. So now we hurry up and wait, but it sounds a lot better then what everyone was imagining.

No comments: