ReachOutGiving

July 23, 2011

Dave has had a very rough week lots of pain and vomiting.

Yesterday Dave and I were headed to Joseph to see Dr. Boyd.  We had stopped at our friends Tia and Dee on the way.  Tia had told Dave the night before he was going to drive us over and was not taking no for an answer.  We got to their house ok but he was having problems the whole way.  We went in the house and he sat down then passed out.  When he came to he started vomiting and the vomit had blood in it.  I asked Dave where he wanted to go and he elected to go to the local ER in Orofino which I was glad.  The hospital is just a couple of blocks from Tia and Dee’s so it was quick to get him there.  I want most of the decisions about his health to be his until he can no longer make those for himself clearly then I will take over.

They did a lot of tests.  It all boils down to this.  The tumor on the small lobe of his liver is completely engulfed in tumor.  They can no longer see the actual liver in the CT.  His other tumors on his pancreas, other lobe of liver and the media stenum (his chest) have not changed very much since he had his last PET scan.

I have not discussed it with Dave.  I don’t believe that the patient should know time frames but our time with Dave is very limited.  They said somewhere around a month but if something changes which it could, it could be just days.  I hope that we will have Dave longer than a month but I do understand the bad side of this.  I am hoping and praying he lives much longer than they give him as I have said before he is tough as nails and has fooled them in the past.  Dave will most likely die of liver failure.  If he does I will have a couple of days notice before he actually passes.  He will turn jaundice and that will cause other organs to start to fail.  It is not a pretty picture but I believe knowledge is power and it is better to know ahead of time than to be shocked later.

Peggy