January began a new year and unfortunately more drama. Mom had her liver biopsy done to see what type of cancer she had and what stage it might be in. Turned out it was squamous cell, typically associated with skin cancer, but can also affect other soft tissue organs like the lungs. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt a sense of relief when I heard squamous cell. I suppose I was thinking that since it wasn’t liver cancer then things might be ok. That thought was short-lived though as I realized that if it’s not liver cancer, but its on her liver then it must be a metastasized form of some other type of cancer. Well that can’t be good.
Dad had his last chemo treatment on January 8th and his last radiation treatment on January 13th. That week after his treatment was completed, he saw the oncologist for a checkup. While at the oncologist, they put an oxygen saturation meter on his finger and had him walk around the office. His saturation went from 99 to 94 so the oncologist wanted him to get a CTA chest scan to rule out blood clots as the cause of his shortness of breath. He had that done on Friday morning and around noon the doctor called and told him to get to the emergency room right away. Turns out he has several clots in his lungs and they wanted to get him on blood thinners stat. So for the first time since we moved into this house in 1977, the fire department visited our home. Mom was a wreck, the neighbors were all wondering what was going on and they damn near tipped over the gurney into the grass when trying to navigate the walkway going from the front porch to the driveway. We came so close to a payday, if that dang gurney has only gone all the way over 🙂
I hugged mom, told her it was going to be just fine. That they were going to put him on thinners and keep him in the hospital for a couple of days to monitor how he reacts to the thinners. Then I talked with the neighbors to let them know everything was ok and that the doctor said to call the ambulance so that the treatment could get started quicker. Ha, that was a joke. The paramedic said, “Doctors always think that triage will happen more quickly just because you came in by ambulance.” Once I got everyone informed and let some time pass for dad to get into the ER and get checked out, I went down to the ER to comfort mom and see how things were going. Dad ended up spending 4 days in the hospital. His INR count (basically the number that represents how quickly your blood clots) was not getting to the 2.0 number they wanted to see. His highest INR was 1.3. So they decided that there really wasn’t much more they would be doing in the hospital and he might as well head home. He was just fine with that, however they wanted to keep him on coumadin and the shot they were giving him which meant he would have to either give himself the shot or have one of us do it. As he put it, “That’s not going to happen.” The nurse looked at him funny and said, “You know clots are serious and it could kill you.” My father was adamant that he would not be taking the shots at home so they switched his medication from coumadin and the shot (never did get the name of that drug) to xeralto.
Monday, January 20, was the day dad was getting released from the hospital. It was also the day that my mother was having her PET scan done to see where else her cancer may be. So I took her to the radiology lab and while waiting for her 2 hour scan to complete I went over to the hospital to see how dad was doing. He wanted to get out of that hospital so bad, but he would have to wait until after I picked up mom from her PET scan. So I sat with him for a bit and talked. Then something happened that was very touching for me. My father had been very emotional, but each time he cried mom was around to comfort him. This time mom was not there and when dad started to talk about mom’s situation and began crying, I was like “shit, what do I do”. You would have to understand that I just never saw my father show these kind of emotions and I have never been in a position to comfort my father. So this was all new territory for me. So I went over to his bedside and he put out his hand. I was surprised I guess. I took his hand and told him everything would be ok. That we would get through this.
I got both of them home and this is when I turned into caretaker. From this day on I made meals, did the housework and the yard work. Well some of it I had already been doing, like the dishes. At this point though, my parents were no longer able to really do much for themselves. Dad was still weak and mom was growing weaker each day.
January was also the start of something else I had not really seen before. My mother sleeping. Here is another little inside secret. My mother has never been a great sleeper. She is a fitful sleeper. She was usually lucky to get 4 or 5 hours a night and it was always broken up by periods of being awake. My mother can often be found sleeping while sitting up as well. It looks very uncomfortable, but somehow she manages. Toward the end of January though, she was sleeping ALOT. I figured she was just making up for years of sleep deprivation, but really she her cancer was just zapping her of all her energy.
The result of her PET scan was pretty terrifying. Along with it came the news that her situation was terminal and any treatment they do would be to make her more comfortable. Her cancer started in her lung and spread to the liver, ribs and spine. Her mother died from liver cancer, her father died from lung cancer and her sister died from bone cancer. My mother figured she didn’t want to leave any of them out, so she got all three.