Doc Hassan dad's oncologist came in today. Basically it is a very very sad day, she does not feel he should continue chemo, since it is making him so sick, unstable, electrolytes off and constantly sending him up and down. There's nothing worse than seeing someone you love suffering with all this treatment and its effects, but on the other hand, stopping treatment means giving up. Not ready to do that either, but this is dad's choice.
Today he was low on platelets so they started a platelet transfusion. I had just researched online and read that 1-2% might have a reaction. Well, less than 2 minutes into the transfusion, and we were talking with dad at the time, suddenly something was terribly wrong. His eyes were wide, he was unresponsive, and in what seemed like forever (really, forever...) but was probably closer to 10 seconds, the room was full of folks, mom crying and hearing a nurse say she can't get pressure, then hearing dad say he can't get air in, can't breathe...let's just say that was 5 minutes we never wanna relive. They mentioned moving him to ICU but then he stabilized and much better. He says he'd rather not get any more platelets. It was an awful experience for him I know. Lucky dad, he's part of the 1%, and here we'd all been thinking we're part of the 99%.
Anyway, glad he's resting comfortably now, we'll be back in the morning to see how he's doing.
He will be in the hospital at least until Monday and we met with a hospice person today who will make arrangements for everything we need at home. Their focus is to keep him pain free and as symptom free and comfortable as possible. This is a very hard thing to come to, but pain free does sound good.
Mary and family, Our hearts and prayers are with you. Love, Suanne and John
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