Dad is home!!!

It's been a rough week for our family. We are still reeling from what happened to Brandy, Jaydin & DD. we love them, and will forever miss them, they were a beautiful family. But during this week we did get a wonderful blessing DAD CAME HOME!!! Yesterday evening our whole family and some of our many wonderful friends were there to welcome him home. I believe this and three very special angels will be the key to dad's healing.

The Good, The Bad, The Other Bad & The Ugly

So, the good...Dad is coming home next week. He will get to be at home and go back and forth to Houston for treatment. We are a little anxious as well as happy, there are no nurses and PCAs to lean on at home like there are at the hospital. The bad, the tumor in dads arm has not responded to treatment and is growing. The other bad, the surgery has been canceled because the arm tumor has weakened the arm which is imparative to rehabilitation of the legs. The arm will not be surgically remedied because the doctors feel that it would do more harm than good at this point and put dad in too much pain. Since the arm tumor has not responded to the treatment, the doctors are also concerned that there may be other microscopic areas that they cannot see on the imaging that are continuing to grow as well. Tomorrow morning, dad will start a new chemo drug called gypsum (my spelling may or may not be correct). It will be administered once a week for three weeks and then a week off. That is one round and at this point we should be able to tell if the tumor is responding (we are praying for it to respond well). If it does we will continue with this chemo drug. If the tumor is unresponsive to it, the doctors will give him something a little different called Strontium, but this cannot be used in conjunction with chemo because it drops blood counts. The ugly, there is no cure for the type of stage four cancer that dad has, aside from a miracle (for which we are all actively praying/begging God for). Until today, I really didn't understand that there are some types of stage four that are more treatable than others or that there even were types. I am so angry and why 1. This happens to anyone, and 2. Why we are having to go through this again. Wasn't once enough? And I am devastated beyond what I can even write down to express.

Sunday at the Hospital

Today we went and saw dad and mom at "the home" as they call it. I made homemade enchiladas yesterday, so we had a very tasty lunch with them in the lobby of West Pavillion. It's a little easier than trying to crowd into the room- I don't know if I have said it before, but it is very small. And Korben has lots of room to run down there. Dad's arm had been hurting him a lot so this week included lots of x-rays, CT scans and MRI's. From this we know the leision in his arm has worsened -bad news- but the rest of the bones remain about th same-goodish news. They also saw some different darkened areas on his lungs but the doctor believes this is his lung collapsing a little from being in bed so much. now the news we are waiting to hear is if they will continue with the surgery as scheduled. A lot of the therapy after the surgery puts stress on the arm, so they have to make sure it will with stand it. I think tomorrow we will know more.