Bad News. Cancer has returned.

How do you write about something so devastating. The CAT scan showed the cancer has returned with a vengeance. We certainly did NOT expect it to be so fast. The whole family gathered around. Even Dori ,way  out in Colorado, tried to fly home but a huge storm is coming today so we urged her to stay put. I feel like the storm has already come. Before this scan life was kind of settling in to a sort of normalcy. We almost could forget about cancer. Even though the commercials reminded us several times a day.

The squirrelly, little, blond doctor came in and immediately said, ” I told you so.” as she handed us the CAT scan report. That’s cold.
You have Stage 4 , uncure-able cancer now. Nothing else can be done. You can get chemo but it would only prolong your life a little bit. Danny shook his head no. No more chemo. It’s not worth living a little longer to just feel like shit the whole time.

Danny is running a low grade fever, we think due to the flu that Ana and Sonnet had. The doctor wanted to admit him to the hospital today. Danny declined. “It’s just a flu. I don’t want to go to any more hospitals.” he was very calm.

“The doctor replied, “Okay, whatever you wish, but if the fever goes up or you are in a lot of pain, go to the emergency room right away.”
“I think you should find a doctor close to your home At this point, it doesn’t matter who you see. You will need hospice.” She said, blinked once and left. As she left she tossed over her shoulder the remark that we could stay in the room as long as we wanted because she knew we had a lot to discuss.

Danny turned to me and said,” Let’s get out of here.”

Soon as we got to the car I couldn’t hold back the flood of tears any longer. And then my nose started to bleed. I only had one tissue. It bled and bled. Danny reached in the back seat where I had a bag of clothes to go to Goodwill and pulled out a purple dress. I bled all over that damn purple! We both cried all the way home. Then I began the painful job of letting the family know what happened. That was harder then getting the news itself.

Little ten-year-old Ry screamed over and over, “I don’t want Gramps to die! I don’t want Gramps to die! ” “I hate cancer!” Everyone was crying. Sean left work to come over even though he wasn’t allowed to do so. Lerin came over, her boyfriend had to drive her over because she was too upset to drive. Dori tried to fly home. Danny’s brother and his wife came over.

And yet I think Danny almost seems calmer. The extreme stress of knowing that at some time the monster cancer would return was over because its here now. Danny kept saying, “It’s easy for me, I’ll be dead. It’s harder for all of you then it is for me.” Yes, it is hard. So fucking hard. This morning I cried so hard, my nose started bleeding again- both barrels! It bled so much that I vomited blood. The first time I heard Danny’s death sentence my hair fell out, now my blood is falling out. My body is in shock.

Here are some of the results of the scan that blew away the last shred of hope we had.

CA 19-9- ………1921 ( that means the tumors are active)  is a tumor marker that is used primarily in the management of pancreatic cancer.Anything higher than 37 U/ml is considered abnormal. The higher the number, the more advanced the disease may be.

Liver– Multiple new lesions- the cancer has spread to his liver
# 1   lesion: 1.2 x 1.1 cm (the size of a pea)
#2 lesion: 1.7 x 1.2 cm
#3 lesion: 1 x .6 cm
#4 lesion: 1.7 x 1.5 cm

Pancreas– #5  tumor: 1.4 x .9 cm

Peritoneum: # 6 tumor: 0.7 x 0.7 cm in lower left quadrant

Lungs: Multiple Ground glass nodules- nodules described as having a “ground glass” appearance are more likely to be malignant.

2 more days till surgery.

Danny October 7

Danny August 26

Danny August 12

Danny- July 16, Resident Doctors learn a lesson in Pancreatic Cancer

GOOD NEWS! Still Pancreatic cancer but not hopeless.

Dori, Sean, Jesse  and I leave the house at 6:00 to head back to the hospital. Dori didn’t get in last night till around 3 in the morning. As always there was an accident on the highway which jammed up traffic. Sean drives and we flop into his car. We park in the parking garage at the hospital on the level called Tyranny. And go from one huge building to the next trying to find Danny. We finally get to the right building and the security guard stops us.
“You have to wait here because the nurses want us to call up and let them know when someone is coming up.” his stubby fat fingers fidget with a repetitive drawing on his tablet while he waits for the phone to be answered. He doodles a three dimensional box over and over. I just want to get up to see Danny. He draws five boxes before he finally hangs up the phone and tells us we can go up to the 13th floor. Danny went to the ER on July 13th and now he’s on the 13th floor. I finger my Lucky Girl necklace and thank God I’m not superstitious.

This morning , like every morning this started, Danny’s face lights up with a huge smile when we walk into his room. Lerin is half asleep on the recliner/ bed chair that she spent the night on. Thank goodness she did! Danny told me he was terrified last night because they had told him at the last hospital about the cancer while he was still groggy from anesthesia and he thought that he would die the next day.Lerin stayed up and comforted him,reassuring him he wasn’t going to die the next day. Danny gave her a map to his treasures and bank accounts and all that other important information.
His room was huge and it was private. He likes that because people annoy him. but even though he didn’t have a roommate plenty of people came in the room. Dr. Lorean who came in and asked if it was okay to teach a class about pancreas over Danny. Danny agreed and in troops about 8 resident doctors. They circle danny’s bed and the class begins with them trying to figure out how to diagnose Danny’s condition. Everyone here is sweet and very considerate. Dr. Lorean tells Danny he’s going to get another ERCP this morning and that the Doctor at Phoenixville had grossly overstated the cancer. He told us that they do hundreds of ERCP’s and it’ll be no problem getting a stent in Danny’s blocked bile duct.  Then doctor and his row of baby ducks filed out.

For the first time we felt a little hopeful. Maybe Phoenixville was wrong. Maybe they just weren’t used to Pancreatic cancer. It is  rare to get this type of cancer but it is deadly.

The janitor informs us that Danny has to move to a new room because his toilet is broken and can’t be fixed right away. So we pack up his few belongings and move to the other end of the hallway to a much smaller room. Danny has diarrhea now, who wouldn’t with this kind of terror? So they have to do more testing in case he has some kind of poop virus that is going around. He gets a 3D CT scan and then the nurse comes in to remove h11:51 am he climbs aboard a gurney to head to the operating room. A nursing student asks us if she can come along to observe. I tell her , “Of course, it’s your place.”

All 7 of us squeeze into the elevator next to Danny. He is pushed down hallways , across bridges and into more elevators till we get to the OR. We all follow him in. The nurse says , “Whoa! That’s quite an entourage you have there. I can tell you’ve never been sick before. Just wait after awhile no one will be with you. I see it all the time.” She shoos out everyone but me and the nursing student. I sit in a chair next to Danny and hold his hand. We have so much to talk about and this damn nursing student pulls up a chair right next to mine and sits there the whole time. She’s going to make a terrible nurse. How could she be so rude?

The operating room nurse comes over and says, “EWWWWW! Why are you touching each other so much? My parents used to do that and its disgusting.” She fiddles with some wires. “Why are you holding his heart, there’s nothing wrong with his heart.” She pulls out Danny IV so she can put in a new one.

“We always touch other other a lot”, I say. How sad that this woman thinks that two people who love each other shouldn’t be touching.

They wheel Danny away and I go join the kids in the waiting room.

Dr. Loren came out and told the whole gang to step into the conference room. He said that the ERCP was successful and he was able to put in the stent and Danny’s bile duct was open. HURRAY! His Liver juices can flow again and he’ll return to his normal  color.

The doctor ordered a liver biopsy because of the spot seen on his liver. He believes it may be cancer that spread from his pancreas . This would be very bad news. That would mean the cancer has gone into his blood steam and can go anywhere in his body. Let’s just hope it is just a benign spot. Hope.

Danny- July 15 Ambulance to Jefferson Hospital

Danny July 14

Danny July 12