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| At the Terry Fox Run. |
All of the bad news in August really took the wind out of my sails, so after taking the month of September to get used to our new reality, I am ready to write another update about my Dad. My Dad is now undergoing chemotherapy treatments every couple of weeks or so. He is on a very low dose of only one chemo drug (chemo patients often have a multiple drug cocktail). He has responded okay so far. His already high output does go up with chemo (which would be expected), but with my Dad the doctors have to keep a close eye on that. During his most recent chemo treatment my Dad was also put in intravenous and that helped him to not be so dehydrated after the chemo. When he starts to get dehydrated you can really hear it in his voice and he sounded better this time round. Sadly this most recent treatment was the first time that my Dad was nauseous enough to throw up and he has definitely felt under the weather, but he seems to recover after a few days.
As far as pain management goes, I don't remember the names of the various drugs the doctors prescribe, but they are definitely helping. On a good day, my Dad is at about a 3 out of 10 for pain. On a bad day, or when medicine is wearing off, he can get up to a 7 out of 10 for pain. Of course my Dad's entire pain scale is a little off as he seems to handle pain better and rate it lower than the average person.
As if cancer isn't bad enough, my Dad's Crohn's Disease seems to have come back. He has now had appointments with Crohn's doctor's on top of his numerous appointments and tests for cancer. He seems to be at the Tom Baker Cancer Clinic or a doctor's office or a hospital multiple times a week. My Mom is on a leave of absence from work and so she is able to be with him for all his appointments.
Last week was the Terry Fox Run in schools and lots of grandkids were running for Papa John. My parents were able to come and be there when both of my boys did their Terry Fox Run.
Other highlights from the past month include the 30th Anniversary of my parents Rook Club. It was hosted at my parents house and my parents were able to enjoy a great night with life long friends. Then a couple weeks ago was my oldest son's baptism where my Dad was able to be one of the speakers. He gave a wonderful talk on baptism. This past weekend was the baby blessing of Jason's first child, Kaleb. We are so happy to have Dad at all of these milestones and to have him in health that is good enough to allow him to participate.
