Things have been rather difficult lately with all that has been going on in my life. Let me take you up to speed. First thing, I have been on upped meds for a month now, 2 40mg Citalopram, 3 Buropion 100mg, 1 400 mg Vitamin D,1 Bactrim Ds -16,1 B-12 sublingual 2500mcg, 1 Selenium 200mcg, 2 multiret folic 500, 1 hydrochlorot hcl, at night I am now taking instead of the quarter of amitryptylene… 1 ½ tab of trazadone which has been wonderful in helping me sleep without the hung over feeling I get from the amitryptylene.
Now for the stressful i.e.: potentially major depressing part. My father is 70. First two months ago my da had his second nose flap surgery due to some pre-cancerous cells on his nose. I teased him about just wanting a face lift About a month later my father went to have a cardio stress test and got out of breath so they stopped it. . So they ran some tests and found he was anemic so they prescribed iron pill, very strong ones to get his blood count back up. Two weeks later he was deer hunting with my brother in South Georgia and had a huge stomach ache. Evidently he had been eating for a few days and not getting rid of anything. But my da, stoic and stubborn (we’re Irish, it’s genetic) thought he could deal with it, but finally succumbed to pain. Fortunately my brother was there and saw how bloated he was and rushed him to the ER. Unfortunately for my Da he had an impacted bowel, presumably from the iron pills. 3 Enemas, milk of magnesium and an adult diaper later they sent him home. Needless to say it was a messy experience.
The Dr’s said for him to take fiber capsules and a mild laxative. They also wanted to run more tests to see exactly why he was anemic. When they examined the x-ray from the impacted bowel, the Dr back home noticed a shadow around my dad’s stomach area. He also noted signs of kidney and gallstone. Da has always had kidney stone problems and he is diabetic. He ordered a pet scan. It showed a mass around the area of my dads stomach but wasn’t very clear. So the Dr ordered a CT scan, with dye. Da was allergic to the iodine in the dye and so they had to put him on some steroids and have him in the hospital so they could treat him in case of anaphylaxis. Two days later they did the CT scan and while they were waiting for the results they did and endoscopy of the stomach and upper GI. He said the endoscopy looked good, no ulcer or evidence of a mass in the stomach or upper GI. But… then the CT scan came back…It showed a mass on dad’s stomach, and nodules on his pancreas, the spleen and the lungs. They suspected then it might be Pancreatic Cancer, one of the worst types of cancer that you could get with only a 10% survival rate.
Da has always had trouble with cysts. And because my da was running a fever, having night sweats and chills, there was a possibility of Lymphoma. So the Dr ordered a biopsy, but when he was sent up to get it done there was some major trauma patients that took precedence so he had to wait. But the next day he was taken in the afternoon, and though they had some trouble getting a biopsy from the mass due to the blood supply there, they got the piece they needed. They released my da Friday afternoon and told him that the biopsy would be ready today Wednesday 11/21/2007 we were awaiting the results.
Update: The Dr has determined that Da has Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Stage two type B, and it possibly can be cured!!!!!! They will have to biopsy the nodules but everything is a little lighter feel now. My Da just cried when he told him that because now he has a chance to fight
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