Keep Calm and Don't Move Your Stops.....

A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning!

The Purpose of Life is Joy!!

Friday, September 30, 2016

Ups and Downs

Two days ago I was feeling pretty down. Today things are different. Even though we don't have the results back from the PET scan, Dad is feeling pretty good. He fell and hit his head Tuesday morning and he sustained a minor concussion. Turns out it appears that along with a him reading his dosage wrong on a couple of his meds was contributing to his general sense of malaise. Once we got the meds figured out and the concussion wore off, he's doing much better.

He was discharged from the hospital night before last so he could have his PET scan yesterday morning. Apparently if you are scheduled for cancer treatment, you can't be in a hospital. I have no idea if I got that right or not but they discharged him. I spent the night with him at his house and he began showing good signs of regaining his strength. Yesterday he managed to do most things for himself although it was a long and difficult day, he managed to work through it with a good attitude and commitment to doing what he needed to do to get well. Since he can be a bit pessimistic sometimes, this was encouraging.

Next week is a week of doctor appointments. He sees the cancer doc for the final diagnosis and what his course of treatment will look like and I think he starts chemo next week as well. Not looking forward to that at all but if he gets better at least for a few more years, then I guess its worth it. At this point, we are concerned more about quality of life vs quantity of years.

Regardless of what happens next week, he's moving into an assisted living facility. That will take a huge load off our shoulders and allow them to do all the mundane daily tasks and allow us to focus on just being with my dad and helping him get better. And if its his time to step off this earth, then the remaining time will be easier and we can just be with him instead of spending most of our time worrying about daily tasks and all the other logistical issues you deal with at this time in a persons life. We did this a year ago with my mom and while it went well, it would have been nice to have someone else manage all the day to day tasks and just let us spend the time with mom.

I may or may not trade next week. It looks to be a pressure cooker of a week between dad's doctors, moving him into the assisted living place, school and all the rest so I may just let it go for now until the pressure is off a bit. My wife is encouraging me to trade to help preserve a sense of normalcy in my daily routine and she might be right. Haven't decided yet. I am a creature of routine and when that routine is broken, I tend to get a bit stressed. Not OCD stressed but just out of sorts. I have a hard time focusing on a string of tasks if the first one is broken or out of order. So we will see.

Interesting times to be sure.


2 comments:

  1. My dad passed away last week so I may have some experiences in dealing with the inevitable. I think the main thing is to do the best you can to help. That way you don't end up with could have, would have once he passed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My dad passed away last week so I may have some experiences in dealing with the inevitable. I think the main thing is to do the best you can to help. That way you don't end up with could have, would have once he passed.

    ReplyDelete

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