370

This morning my father was released from room 370 to go home. The past week was horrible. On Monday Pop went in for a biopsy, a "T" incision at the base of his throat, however, enlarged blood vessels were found. So the doctor had to do the same procedure for open heart surgery to perform the biopsy. It was a drastic operation for a biopsy but a correct diagnosis was necessary.

Pop came through the surgery great. There was no esophegal or lymphoma found: it was lung cancer growing in my father!

Lung cancer, that wasnt even on the radar.

So my dad sat in the room contemplating the future and the news of diagnosis.

On Wednesday we met with the Oncologist. He told us dad has non-small cell lung cancer, the typical cancer you think about when think about lung cancer. The typical treatments of chemotherapy and radiation can extend life for an average of 1 and 1/2 years. (if no treatments are offered they gave dad six weeks.)

On Thursday he had a stent put in his esophagus to enable him to swallow and eat soft foods.

On Friday he met with the radiologists.

Treatments will begin next week.

I am back in Lil Rhody now. I will go back to the Mountain State after the baby is born, dad's first round of treatments should be finished by then.

They say 25% of patients at the cancer center "make it." There is good reason to think my dad may be one of the 25%. He has been struck by lightinging. He feel three stories through scaffolding and survived. Because he is left-handed a truck once totaled his car while he was about to get in the trunk (a righty would have been obliterated.) A week after he served his time in Germany his unit was deployed to Vietnam. (His HAWK unit had a 15 minute survival time in the field of battle).

Livestrong Pop.