Positive move

Dad was moved to a private room today. His BP is up well within normal range and no sign of dehydration. They started giving him insulin today though because his blood sugar was way too high. The girls and I went to see him for a few hours and he was much more alert and even ate some real food! I think it has finally set in that he HAS to start making more of an effort to eat and drink as much as possible. As I was leaving he even asked me to sneak him in a couple of beers tomorrow. Yeah, not gonna happen bud!

I had a flashback today. His room was very stuffy and I suddenly thought about the ice cream treats I saw in a vending machine on first floor the other day. I told the girls to come with me and we went down to scope it out. There were 10-12 different items to chose from and the girls took their time to insure a wise choice. Gentry chose a drumstick and as I was pushing the buttons on the vending machine, a memory from my childhood came over me like a wave...

I was only four years old when my Grandpa Dodd died of cancer.  I can only remember going to the hospital to see him one time and on that visit I distinctly remember someone taking me to the vending machines where they bought me a drumstick ice cream cone. I remember that because it was the first time I had ever had one and it was AWESOME!

As Gentry reached in and grabbed that drumstick I instantly thought, "Oh my.. now she going to have the same memory of her Grandpa fighting cancer in the hospital."

Thank you to Julie for taking his picture of my Dad at Thanksgiving.

Not an ideal Christmas

Last Wednesday my Dad was transported to Mercy Hospital in Manhattan. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in October and also has tumors in his liver and lungs. They predicted he would only live six months. Wednesday he was unresponsive due to severe dehydration. As a result, his kidneys had shut down and his blood pressure was barely existent. We were told his heart could shut down at any time. We honestly didn't know if he would survive the 30 minute ambulance ride.

We spent all Christmas Eve day as well as Christmas Day with him in ICU. With the help of IV fluids, a blood transfusion, and several different blood pressure meds, he has regained function of his kidneys. Over the past two days they have been weening him off the other meds but his blood pressure is still too low to be moved out of ICU. We are still hopeful that his body will correct this eventually on its own.

The doctors are not giving us any false hope. They have said that the low blood pressure may just be a side effect of the cancer and he may not leave the hospital. Dad is insistent that he not be rescessitated if his heart stops. He wants to die naturally.

I want to sincerely say Thank you to all of my loving, supportive friends who understand what a difficult time this is for my family and have done nothing but send messages of encouragement and prayers...  you all are my rocks and you mean the world to me.