Hoping to be a member for a lil longer…

hi everyone! and thanks!

thanks for your stories of triumph, and losses (i think ive read most of them this past 2 weeks)

thanks for being so open

thanks for being so caring

ive been getting educated about CC here

I said i was hoping to be a member for a little longer because it would mean that my dad is still fighting, still with us.

my dad was dignosed with stage 4 intrahepatic CC this past July. he had just came to Montreal to check out my new apartment, (im a senior in college) and he looked healthy! he seemed a little tired but was healthy! A couple of weeks later, as i decide to surprise him and my mom with a quick visit, i find myself driving to the hospital with my father. A couple days and many scans and MRI later, we get the horrific news. I will never forget how hard it was to tell my mother that her husband of 33 years had cancer…

my dad was put on on the GEM/CIS chemo treatment almost right away. the doctors at UMC wanted to aggressively attack the tumor that had metastase on his liver. I had to come back to start my last semester of school. not being there for him has been very difficult. Other members of my family stepped up and made the trip to go and be there with him and my mother. the treatment seemed to be working… blood tests were good, cancer cells were dropping, tumour had stopped growing and all that… he was experiencing stomach pain and mostly fatigue. We wanted him to get somewhat better in order for us to go to Houston Anderson center to get a second opinion…

Last week, when he went to go get his treatment, and couldn’t, because his bilirubin was too high…

he kept getting more tired, the bilirubin kept increasing… he got admitted in the hospital, they did the MRI’s and scans to see if they could install a stent, for the bilirubin to lower so he could continue the treatment… i quoted this from a post by Linda R, because this is the exact situation for my father. “The doctor at first thought that there was an obstruction of the bile duct that could be stented but several tests have failed to confirm this. He now thinks that it is more likely that the tumors in the liver are compressing the small intrahepatic bile ducts and causing the bilirubin to build up. He says there is no treatment for this condition and that further treatment of the cancer is not possible because of the high bilirubin. He plans to order one more MRI just to make sure he is not missing anything and, at my request, he ordered antibiotics in the unlikely event that an infection could be contributing to the problem. However, it is clear that he thinks we are nearing the end of the journey. At our meeting today he talked mostly about symptom relief and the possibility of hospice.

the doctors prognosis is not too good. the MRI also showed that the tumour had expanded. Ive talked to my dad, and i sense that he lost hope in his voice. Im writing this letter while packing a bag to leave school and catch an early flight to Tucson tomorrow morning to be with my father.

im confused, im sad, hurt, mad, lost. i dont know what to say, how to say it…
im kinda hoping for a miracle… and want everyone that believes in some type of highest power to simply pray for my family.

i really really want to be a member of this group for some more time.