Ah, what a lovely Christmas present!

[REPOST FROM 12/20/2007]

Christmas trees, candy canes, holly, lights, singing, and snow; typical reminders of the Christmas season. Hows this for some alternate keywords for Christmas: Cancer, inoperable, Alzheimers, prognosis, and fatal. These are my keywords this 2007 Christmas season, and I have learned today that my 67 year old father, who already has Emphysema and Alzheimers, also has inoperable lung cancer. It was some time ago that exams were ordered to discover the reason why my father was having difficulty breathing. The tests revealed a spot on the lungs, approx. 12 mm in lenght. The biopsy yesterday confirmed it is indeed lung cancer.

Further tests were conducted. It was determined that it is a type of large cell, slow moving cancer. However, the physician and surgeon both agreed surgical removal is impossible, as it is too dangerous to take my father off his blood thinners (because his risk of having yet ANOTHER heart attack goes to the moon), and because his body physically cannot survive the surgery. The death rate is 25% even in a healthy patient.

Also, it was determined he could not survive either chemotherapy or radiation therapy. The conclusion of the doctor and surgeon is this: The cancer is inoperable and cannot be removed. His lungs are 35% collapsed, and surgery to repair it has too great a risk of killing him. His prognosis is 6 months, 12 if we’re lucky, but possibly as little as 2 months.

His regular pain medicine, Methadone, is no longer cutting the butter. It is believed they will bring him liquid morphine soon, but this raises two issues. One) The morphine may in all actuality not relieve his pain much better, and since users develop a tolerance rapidly, he may soon not even get a marginal amount of relief from it. Two) Although I will not name names here, it is my suspicion that, rather than watch him wither and die a slow, painful death, an unspecified loved one of his may perhaps either assist him in suicide, or perform a sort of “mercy killing”, since overdose by morphine would undoubtedly be quicker and less painful that his current fate. I estimate the chances of such an incident at roughly 15 percent.