Hello again – thank you so much to those of you who replied to my post. I appreciate it. Dad had his initial oncology visit. The doctor said that he has the most cancer spread of anyone he has ever seen on an initial oncology visit (and this is not a young doctor). He said he likely has almost as many cancer cells in his body as normal cells. Dads liver biopsy showed he is BRAF negative. Immunotherapy and targeted therapy was recommended and we also discussed hospice. I’m not sure what dad will choose to do. The doctor seemed to feel that therapy was a viable option to get his pain more under control and give him more quality and perhaps more quantity of life, however the significantly advanced state of his disease was mentioned many times. We are proceeding with scheduling things as though he will start treatment but he is still deciding what to do. He doesn’t want to prolong suffering and just continue feeling miserable.
We met with palliative care to get a better grip on pain management. With the mets to his spine, liver, lungs, spleen, muscles, and skin, he is is an incredible amount of pain. Further complicated by the constipation caused by opioids. Hopefully the new pain regimen will give him relief and he will see the benefits of pursuing treatments.
Today he had a PET scan done, anxious to see those results. I’m most curious and hopeful that he does not have mets to the brain, however I would not be surprised given how advanced it is.
They also mentioned doing some radiation to his bone mets, hopefully that would also help decrease pain.
I’ll try to stop by and update as time goes on, especially if he starts treatment.
