Dad is 84 years old. He’s been off cigarettes for 26 years. But he’s lived with a ghost of his bad choices this whole time. Cancer like a Spectre has been hiding all time.
The update as of 8/17
We had a meeting with the guy that did the biopsy today. He is a fellow and I’m not impressed with his delivery, but his attending was much better. Basically Dad has a big mass. It is 4 cm on one side 3 cm on the other and it’s wrapped around an airway.
The type of cancer is Non small cell Squamous cell carcinoma
They wouldn’t seem much in terms of treatment. At least the fellow wouldn’t. He said he couldn’t, which is probably true. The attending was a little bit more forthcoming. Saying that they could use chemo or radiation to shrink the tumor so that they could potentially operate.
We have an appointment with an oncology, Dr. Winchester for not until August 31 because that person is on vacation for the last two weeks of August
The attending suggested that I reach out to radiology, but I feel weird about that because I haven’t yet met the oncologist
I don’t think that he’s getting any kind of subpar care per se, but I feel like there is some assumption as to what we know as far as how to proceed and what this all means
Meanwhile, dad feels good. He gets very tired, but his breathing is good considering that the mass is blocking that airway pretty significantly.
I’m just trying to make sense of all of it.
Dad is in pretty good spirits I think because he feels good. He gets emotional because he feels like he’s having a time of his life and now he’s getting sick like deadly sick.
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