The past 11 days have flown by. We have finally completed the sale of my fathers business and he has now ‘properly’ moved in with us. It has been a tough two months for all of my family. After 20 years my father has finally retired. It is so sad that in retirement he is facing the greatest challenge of his life.

The Calaxane injections stopped last Saturday and the physiotherapists have also stopped visiting. The GP and nurses are very happy with dad’s progress and are astonished at how clean the infection free the wound is. There is however still a chance of DVT and infection so it is prudent that we look out for the tell tale signs.

Over the last 10 days my father was doing well, he was eating more and as sleeping well. The last 3 days have been rather different. He has slowly developed a rash on his face. This was expected as it affects 75% of Tarceva users, but we did think it would develop earlier on. The pain in his stomach has returned and his entire leg is in pain. I spoke to the emergency nurse this morning and she said that the switching of co-codamol to paracetamol may be the reason he is experiencing more pain than he is used. We were forced to do this as the capsules had run out and dad can’t swallow the tablet form. She suggested taking Tramadol which was prescribed by the hospital on discharge. Dad decided to carry on with the round tablet form of Co-codamol and so far his pain has eased.

What’s concerning me is the level of pain he felt as the Co-codamol wore off. He tail bone was hurting, stomach paining, leg paining and lower back. The lower back  and tail bone is probably due to the prolonged time he spends on the sofa. Still, I will mention this to the GP next week.

Last week, my father underwent some blood tests that I requested. His LFT figures are abnormal and he still has a high white blood cell count. The GP wanted to find out if there was an infection in the knee. I’ve asked the GP to compare the results of the old bloods with the new ones. My fathers hemoglobin levels are now at 9.1.  I have informed my fathers GP that Tarceva has affected LFT’s. Once we have the results I will contact the LOC and ask for some advice.

After yesterdays positive day, dad looked absolutely shattered and weak today. Apparently the nurses had kept him up since 9am and did not allow him to sleep. He had to sit and walk. This was of course to stop any DVT occurring.

The head nurse told me that he needs a lot of encouragement to exercise. She also said that he just about ready to leave the hospital. All they need to do is arrange local support from the social workers.

After an anxious wait of 10 days, the PET scan results were finally revealed to us yesterday.

Now you would think, the results would have been revealed to us from someone we knew, such as the lung specialists or the respiratory nurse, or even an Oncologist (if we had one). Nope, not this time, as usually the lack of compassion, empathy and experience showed it’s ugly face again.

The plan for the day was to visit my fathers GP to go over the blood test results that were taken two days before. Then we were to attend an appointment with a private Orthopedic surgeon to discuss the possibility of replacing my fathers knee privately. The last call on our schedule was to visit the hospital and speak to the lung specialty with regards to the PET scan results.

In reality, expecting to see my fathers GP of 15 years, we instead were seen by a new part-time GP. Expecting to go over the blood results, we were told that the PET scan results had been received via fax that morning from the hospital.

After trying to convince the GP not to give the results out as we had an appointment with the lung specialist in the afternoon, the GP pronounced it was my fathers decision and if my father asked for them he was obliged to reveal them.

The results were not good, the cancer had spread and there is no possibility of radical radiotherapy or surgery.

We spent 20 minutes consoling my father, I tried to re-iterate that these results didn’t really matter as the risks verses benefits of the offered Radiotherapy procedure meant we were not going down that route anyway. This was just another knock out punch, something I promised myself would not happen, I wanted to protect my my fathers already very fragile mental state. The GP then said that the only thing they can do is address each symptom as it occurs and make my fathers last days as comfortable as possible.

I then asked about the blood results, the doctor saw that the hemoglobin levels had dropped to 7.9. He advised that a blood transfusion was needed as it has dropped below 8. He made the necessary phone calls and I was asked to call back on Monday.

Our next port of call was the Orthopedic surgeon.