My father's diagnosis.Gall bladder adenocarcinoma

Hello everyone and best wishes to you and your loved ones for health and strenth in each one's journey.

My father has been diagnosed with gall bladder adenocarcinoma. His diagnosis came after an histological examination of the extracted gall bladder and

were a shock to all members of our family as my father has until recently been working like a boss, for hours at an end and his only symptom was an undeliberate

weight loss, which he attributed to him getting old and losing muscle. Because of the Covid19 restrictions, we were not allowed to travel to the countryside often

so the weight loss just took a few months to be noticeable. In the last two months before his diagnosis he suffered a very intense pain in the abdominal area,

and remained in the hospital overnight and that was the start of a difficult journey to find what was wrong inside his body. Ultrasounds/sonograms, CT scans, doctor after doctor,

everyone thought this was just an ordinary case of a gallbladder having stones that didn't show to the tests as they were probably on the smaller scale, and that the weight loss

was probably due to his digestion problems caused by the gall bladder, so they removed it.

The oncologist said that, unfortunately, it is quite common for that type of cancer to be found after the initial cholecysestomy. So, just a routine operation,

but the first sign of trouble was that it lasted for 4 hours, not so typical for a routine cholecysestomy. His surgeon told us that he hadn't seen such a sclerotic gall bladder for years.

And that his whole abdominal area was full of symphysis, I don't know the right medical term for that. They also found a quite big mass in his duodenum, which they took a sample from, 

and luckily this one wasn't malignant.

He is now on steroids, so he can gain some strength to go through his first rounds of chemotherapy, with GemCis. I am not sure if he can handle it and I am constantly worried.

He is 82 and although not suffering from any heart or other major organs conditions, the fact that they cannot operate is a major sign that the treatment is palliative.

I adore my father to bits, I love him, he has always been my rock, this lovely philosopher, gardener, lover of countryside and tree hugger. I cannot imagine a life without his constant  

existence in my world and I am trying every day to come to terms with this terrible diagnosis. Why did he have to get such a rare type of cancer? And all the ifs and whats and whys are in 

my mind day and night. How much time do we have with him? The oncologist is not so clear to tell yet, I guess he is waiting until the chemo starts. He is going to have a day of chemo for

2 consecutive weeks and the 2 weeks of rest. I cannot stop thinking that we are counting months and that the clock is ticking. I try to spend as much hours, days, weeks as I can with 

him, surprise him with books and paintings he loves, discussions with subjects he is passionate about, and trying not to burst into tears every time I think of the time passing and of

possible metastatic tumors found in the next months.