So. I didn't realise it had been 9 months since my last post. How time flies....
Dad had a routine scan that seemed to show progression of the tumour in January. Surgery was recommended to be followed by a new chemo regime.
He had a surgery on the Friday, after which he was happy but had vertigo. A scan revealed that they hadn't got the tumour that they wanted, so they operated again on the Monday. After that he was grumpy and agitated, struggling with full sentences and slightly dragging his right foot. As it turns out it was radiotherapy necrosis and not cancer progression. A totally pointless set of operations that left him with deficits.
He was ok for a few weeks, but his symptoms became more apparent, and he started to completely run out of energy. He would walk the half mile to the shop, and end up getting a taxi back again.
When I conveyed worsening symptoms to his oncology team, they said to up his Dex, organised physio and increased his speech therapy. None of these helped.
On his routine scan beginning June, it was found that he had fluid around his brain causing pressure. Surgery was recommended again and performed about 3 weeks ago.
The first surgery was to drain the fluid. This made his symptoms worse. The next day he had air on his brain and so was put on oxygen. The day after that the fluid was deemed to be back. They operated again and put in a shunt.
He hasn't left hospital since, being moved to a hospital close to home for rehabilitation. It was on this word that he's had an episode, suspected of being a stroke. Although a CT scan was immediate, it didn't show what anyone wanted and he's been waiting 5 days for an MRI, because the radiology people wouldn't scan him without the serial number of the shunt (to prove there's no metal in it). Once they had it the magnet broke. Hopefully he'll get it tomorrow.
I could go into the catalogue of errors that have happened to him this year, but it would be ranty and unhelpful. I'm so disheartened by his care at present.
So my Dads on a rehabilitation ward with no real chance of rehabilitation. I've had the talks from a consultant and the surgeon to say no more surgery and no more cancer treatment. The sad thing is he's left with major deficits from the surgeries, the first of which he didn't need, and as of his last scan there was no progression. To me this means he could be like this indefinitely, its very cruel.
To cap it all I found out today that there's £10k missing from his bank account. It seems that he has been doorstep scammed by 2 scouse sounding scumbags and he didn't want to tell me. My poor Dad is devastated ad was so embarrassed he'd hidden his bank statement. I'm heartbroken someone could be so low.
