Experimenting with Drugs (not what you think)

Happy Sunday everyone!

I know we’re a little slow with blog posts (sorry from Nichole and thanks to Adam for the latest post), but we just don’t have a lot of new information to share. Dad is chugging along – lately, we’ve been experimenting with medications and side effects to see what works for dad, and what doesn’t.
Dad has medications for his: 1) kidneys, 2) pain, 3) blood pressure, 4) sleep problems, 5) rumbley intestines, and 6) nausea. Sometimes he gets a little overmedicated trying to manage all these issues and turns into Zombie Dad from Doomsday (that sounds like a horror movie). Sometimes some medications make him nauseated and we have to use more medications to make him less nauseated, which make him more drowsy, more sleepy, or more zombie-ish (or all of the above). When he gets nauseous, we have to go on “puke duty” for a day or two. All in all, it’s usually a gamble what happens, so we’re trying to take it slow and easy. We are grateful for all of dad’s visitors – they help brighten up the days of unease and discomfort.

When we went to the GI Oncologist, who is a specialist in the cancer field, we decided to start Chemotherapy, as you may have read. We did decide to speed up the timeline a bit. Dad had a PET scan and some labs done this last Friday to establish a baseline of the cancer tumors (how big they are, how much cancer stuff is in his blood, etc). Dad will have his first dose of one chemotherapy drug on Wednesday the 12th. It's very mild and is only supposed to cause a little fatigue. Later this month, he will have the second dose of chemotherapy. This one is different from the first, because it involves a combination of drugs that should be more effective, but are a little more toxic to his system. That means there is the possibility of both fatigue and nausea that may last a little longer than a day or two. We don’t know yet how he will react, but after doing these two rounds of chemotherapy, dad will have another PET scan and labs done to see if there was any effect on the cancer tumors. If there was, we’ll continue. If not, we’ll stop.

The reason we are doing chemotherapy is not to “cure” dad. The cancer tumors are too widespread to cure. Chemo can help, however, to make dad feel better. For example, sometimes, the cancer tumors grow and press on organs, causing pain. The chemo helps to shrink the tumors a little, which can bring great relief from the pain. Dad’s pain isn’t so bad right now, and we want to keep it that way. We’ll keep you updated on how things go.

Again, thank you for all of your love and prayers. We are grateful for the knowledge we share as a family that we will be together again after our journeys in this life are over. It sustains us, as does our belief in Jesus Christ.
May His spirit be with you all,

The Losers