Hospice

So unfortunately I learned what hospice was today.

My dad has been suffering from a rare form of cancer known as GIST (Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor). He was diagnosed with this cancer several years ago and has been involved in several state-of-the-art medications and treatments to help fight the disease.

About a year ago the treatment that he was on stopped working. There is a lot of research going on out there right now, and there were a couple things that my dad tried in the house and in the doctor's office to try and beat this beast.

Well, over the past year the tumors have grown and grown until recently. There is a brand new treatment that they just started my dad on. It sounded really good, and actually started working. He took a CAT scan in december that revealed that three of the four tumors had stopped growing, and had even started to shrink in size. Wonderful news!

The fourth tumor however hadn't stopped growing but it looked like it was starting to slow down (this is the largest one by the way). I don't know a lot about the tumors, but slowing down sounded good to me.

Well, last weekend my dad called me and said that he had things to do if I wanted to come over, so I went over to help in at his house. When I got there though I met a man that was not acting like my dad. He was up and moving around the house, but he was very slow and seemed like he was sleep walking. As the day went on he did some crazy things that didn't make sense at all. These actions really worried Patty and I.

We decided that we shouldn't leave him along as long as he was acting like this. We thought that maybe he was acting like this because the medications were not mixing well. We took him off of the pain medication and off of the anxiety medication to see if that helped. Sunday morning he was a little better, but was still really slow. Then he started to complain about severe pain in his chest and lower body, so we gave him a pain patch.

For the rest of the day he continued to respond slowly if at all, but it was better than the day before, so Patty and I just figured that we should go easy on the medications. Well Monday morning I guess that things were worse.


Monday morning he got up and made it into the bathroom before he collapsed, unconscious. Patty called 911 and they transfered him to the ER in Provo. For the past 4 days the doctors have been running every scan, x-ray, or test that they could think of to try and figure out what was causing the problems.

Well this morning they came into the room after taking another scan of the tumors. The scan showed that the large tumor had started to fight back and started to grow. It seems that just in the last two weeks that the tumor has continued to grow at a pretty fast rate, causing everything in the chest cavity to be compressed. This tumor is located in his liver, and is now more than three times the size of a normal liver.

The only thing that they can think of is that the size and immediate growth of the tumor has taken over so much of the liver that it is unable to do anything with the blood that it is supplied with. Just in the last week his health has gone downhill so fast that we find it hard to believe that it was the tumor.

Everything in his chest cavity though is so compressed that his heart is having problems pumping blood, his lungs are having trouble breathing, and everything just seems to be slowly stopping. The Doctors said that they recommended ceasing treatment of the cancer so that my dad could return to his house and his family in peace and comfort. This is where the hospice comes into play.

Hospice isn't an option unless the patient has a terminal illness and usually less than 6 months to live. With the growth of the tumor in my dad's liver, and the rate of shutdown of all of his systems, the doctors said that he may have a week left to live...

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So after that news we returned home, setup one of those temporary medical beds in my dad's office, and have started to prepare for the worst. Watching my dad go this way has been hard, but I never imagined that it would be like this. It is something that we knew would come one day, but didn't think that it would hit this week. Luckily he has been able to prepare a little as far as how he wants things to occur and all that, but it is still so much harder than I have ever even imagined.

I feel so hurt for everyone involved.

His Mother who, at 95, is as healthy or healthier than any of her children. She says that a parent should not live to see a son die.

His Wife. He has recently found love in his second marriage. Both Patty and Paul have worked so hard to make things happen. They paid off the house, they planned vacations together, they planned retirement. And now they have planned a funeral.

My little 16 year old sister who still needs a dad to watch out for her and make sure that the guy that takes her to the dance has someone to fear.

My little brother who is getting married in June, and when planning the date was hoping that it would be soon enough for my dad to attend.

The list goes on and on so don't be offended if I didn't list you...

Everyone that I can think of will miss this wonderful and respected man. He has done so much that I can't even begin to list everything that he has done for me. I am ever so grateful for all the time that he has spent with me, and now I don't know what I am going to do that he will not be here for much longer. Cherish the memories and lessons I guess.

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Well tomorrow is another day for us here at the Liston house. Lots of visitors and lots of family. Thanks to everyone that has shared your love and concern.