This post is the second update on Dad that we sent out, via e-mail, on Thursday, July 16, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
Again, thank you to each of you for the prayers, kind thoughts, well wishes, cards, and flowers. We are milking up all of it! The delivery man at the hospital brought a stack of cards today and said ‘Hi Henry. See you tomorrow.’ You know Dad was loving that! He doesn’t care where he’s the most popular, as long as he retains the title. So, for the moment, he is the Parker Adventist Resident Comedian…which is a good sign that he is in good spirits.
Since Sunday, much has happened, while at the same time some things are slow. It has kind of been a 2 steps forward, 1 step back sort of week, but the good thing is we’re making progress. More tubes have been removed, although he’s still on a feeding tube. Tomorrow’s goal is ice chips!!! Like I said, baby steps.
Hospital Stay
He had some issues with his blood pressure this week and passed out 3 of the 4 times he got out of bed in a 24 hour period. He figured out very quickly how to get about 20 nurses and doctors in his room. Again, he won the popularity contest on the second floor. Although his nurse told him if he wanted more attention to just ask. Those incidents were a step backward, but today the blood pressure was spot-on and he took a very long walk down the hall…2 steps forward. We are still unsure when he will be released from the hospital. He has a number of goals that have to be achieved before they will let him out. Things like eating and drinking. We are guessing he’ll be released sometime next week.
Prognosis
The pathology report was not quite what we expected after the surgery. While the ‘margins’ around the tumor were clean, including the tail of the pancreas, 7 of the 14 lymph nodes that were removed did have cancer. The cancer type was pancreatic ductal carcinoma. It is the adeno form of cancer that can move quickly (hence the spread to the lymph nodes). It is called ductal because it started in the ducts. So, what does all this mean?
He will definitely be undergoing chemotherapy, since they have to treat the system. They are not recommending radiation. They are optimistic that they removed all of the cancer, but you never know if any sneaky cells got elsewhere in his system and are moving to a different part of the body. The bad news of the day was he has an 80% chance of the cancer recurring someday, 70% chance if he does chemo. But, in typical Dad fashion, he said, “Not a problem, we’ll be in the 20%.”
Next Steps
Mom and Dad will be heading back to St. Louis probably near the end of the month. He has a few weeks before he needs to start chemo and he needs to heal some more from the Whipple Procedure. He will start with an oncologist in St. Louis and probably begin with a PET Scan to determine if the cancer is in any other organs. If that test is negative, he’ll start about 6 months of chemo. If that test shows cancer somewhere else he’ll start a whole new treatment and a whole new series of these ridiculously long updates! Pray like hell that the PET Scan shows good results!
At this point, we are still playing a bit of the waiting game…waiting for ice chips, food, and more tubes to be removed. Then we’ll move on to waiting for a trip home, a new oncologist, and chemo. Shortly after that we’ll finally be at the point that we’re waiting in the drive-thru at McDonald’s for an egg mcmuffin and at the bar at Schlafly’s for an APA.
Much thanks and love to each of you for your prayers and concern. He is truly lucky to have so many good friends in his life. Come visit when he gets home, Mom will surely be driving him crazy by then!
Love,
Kathy (Daughter #3)
DISCLAIMER…I have no medical training and don’t even know if some of this stuff is spelled correctly. Be careful if you google any of the medical terms listed above. It will probably bring back results for things like breast augmentation and plumbing.
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