Not so good

This past week we confirmed that my Dad’s disease has changed in to Acute Leukemia. There are treatments for this, however, they only provide quantity of life not quality of life. My Dad has always been an active person and really isn’t interested in prolonging his life if it just means laying in bed in pain for feeling sick from the treatments. I can’t say that I would make a different choice. I wonder sometimes when working with the medical profession if they think about the hypocratic oath when treating their patients. I think it says something about “first do no harm”. Its sort of like the prime directive from Star Trek if you happen to be a fan.

In the past several days my Dad has stopped taking a lot of his medicines – insulin, heart medications, antibiotics, etc. Many of them make his sick to his stomach because he’s not eating much and they don’t do well on an empty stomach. He’s mostly just taking the pain medication now.

On Thursday my brother’s family came in to say goodbye and stayed through Friday morning. On Friday night my family arrived. They are leaving tonight. It has been nice to have them here. I stayed over at the hotel with them for the past two nights and my brother stayed with my Dad. My Dad is sort of possessive of me and probably would have rather I did not go stay at the hotel but my brother is perfectly capable. Its kind of strange how much Daddy depends on me and always calls out for me when he wants something. Normally, I would find this distracting and irritating because it seems to be the story of my life – someone always calling out and wanting something from me – but in this case I seem to be doing just fine. Perhaps it is a lesson. Though I do recall a similar thing when my mother was dying. She had a bell she would ring. They expect you to be right at the door the instant they call your name or ring the bell. If you are in the middle of something that’s just not realistic.

For the last two days he seems like he’s a little better. That may be due to the new pain patch we were able to get him. Lindsay says its because she’s here and she’s magic. I know that my Dad was really glad that she was coming. He’s very close to her.

Yesterday one of Dad’s old hunting buddies came by and visited. They sat back in my Dad’s room for over an hour talking about the old days when they went hunting together and other stuff. I think my Dad really enjoyed it. I have to fly out for a day trip on Wednesday. They may go for a drive out to his farm while I am traveling that day. I hope my Dad feels like going. I think that would be good for him.