I don't understand -- Long -Sorry....

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-21-2003
I don't understand -- Long -Sorry....
1
Wed, 02-27-2008 - 7:13pm

I'm new here and I really just need to vent a little.


Two weeks ago today, my dad left my house after a visit with his 4 year old grandson and went back to his house several hours away....  He was feeling congested and generally really bad.  The next day he went to his doc who sent him for a chest x-ray, thinking he had phnemonia.  At the extra, they discovered some alarming growth's and lots of fluid build up in his lung cavity. They admitted him.  The hospital didn't have a room, so he basically sat in the ER being monitored for 4 days.  By the time they got him in a room, his condition had gotten 100 times worse.  They sent him to have fluid drained off his lungs and they got out 6 liters.  They biopsied several nodules (which they later determined to be cancer)  He was immediately much better.  Each day after that he got worse.  They moved him from a regular room back into the CCU.  He's unable to feed himself and hence is not eating.  His lungs are week, so they have him on a bypap machine (I'm not sure if i got that right...) and he can't eat with it on.  The doctor called me today to discuss feeding tubes and the need to put him on a vent to put in the tube, and the worry that they wouldn't get him back out of it because his lungs are not strong.


To make a long story short, we have a oncologist that my family trusts, but he works out of a different hospital and won't see him in the hospital he's in.  He's currently *Only* being treated by a lung doctor.  So I called the oncologist who referred me to a different doc who practices at the hospital he's in.  I call that doctor, and he tells me he can't see my dad without a consult being called by the lung doctor.  I'm getting really frustrated here...  Don't I have the right to ask for a second opinion?? Can they really tell me they won't see my dad without the lung doc asking for it?? Give me a break... And in my opinion, his lack of eating is mainly caused by the nurses NOT feeding him.   He's incredibally weak and cant even lift a spoon...  He's drinking ensure as he can and he's eating soup as it's fed to him, but eating makes him cough up gunk and there needs to be someone there to cheer him on.


I'm 8 months pregnant, 3 hours away.  I am not happy with his treatment and he can't be moved.  There is no plan of action, or if there is, it consists of putting in a feeding tube and hoping for the best.  How perminant is a feeding tube? Is this something that is the beginning of the end for him?? Honestly, I've accepted the fact that he's got pretty advanced cancer.  What I can't accept is that he's going to die in the hospital weeks after diagnosis with no chance of fighting anything.  I am really having a tough time here... and I can only fight a limited fight because I'm so far away and so pregnant, and I have a 4 year old to care for too.  I really want him home with people who love him and not in the hospital on breathing treatments and feeding tubes.


Anyway, I was hoping someone had some advice for me. I'm not sure there is any to give, but I feel better just by venting a little.  The suddeness of all this is really really too much for me.


 

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Thu, 02-28-2008 - 1:44am

Hi Grace


I am so sorry Dad is so ill.

Hope everyone has a great Summer!

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