Bumpy road

Sorry for the big lapse in posts...our life has pretty much been turned upside down in the past 2 weeks. Since my last post when I mentioned that my dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer, here are the facts that we have learned and the possible choices we'll have to make...
1. Dad has stage 4 lung cancer that is growing inside his right lung. This tumor has compromised his right lung to the point of collapsing (that happened this past Monday the 13th). The lung cancer is also growing around his heart and compromising his vascular structures.
2. The lung cancer has metastasized to his brain. There are a large number of lesions all over his brain, with the most concerning one being almost 3cm in diameter near his brain stem. Initially they wanted to begin radiation to shrink this tumor, but only completed one treatment before the next complication arose.
3. Dad has pneumonia in his left lung, which put a lot of pressure on the compromised airway in the right lung and caused the collapse. He had to be intubated because he simply could not get enough air on his own. He's been on the ventilator since last Friday, the 10th. Since then he has been very heavily sedated - to the point where he didn't even know when we were there. They had to keep him so heavily sedated because his blood pressure was out of control as was his heartrate. He's been fighting high fevers all this week and they're fairly confident that he has a super-infection on top of the pneumonia - something that is resistant to the antibiotic they've been giving him for the pneumonia.
4. Once the lung collapsed on Monday they inserted a chest tube to drain the fluid and reinflate the lung. After 3 days it was only 80% effective, so last night Billy and I gave consent for them to put a second tube in. I saw him today and it seems to be working well.

The short term goal is to remove the chest tubes and get Dad off the ventilator. Before we can do that he needs to have a rigid bronchoscopy where they will insert a stent in his right lung to stabilize the small area where he is able to breathe. This is the best chance he has at getting off the ventilator and getting over the pneumonia.

Billy and I are so lucky to have each other. We are the ones who have to make all of these decisions for Dad since he's been incapacitated. The hard part is not being selfish and keeping him around if he's going to be miserable. We've been able to talk to him yesterday and today - he can't respond or talk because of the tube, but he can nod and shake his head, and he can wink and squeeze your hand. To be honest, after 5 days of seeing him looking lifeless and not able to even open his eyes, seeing Dad wink is the best thing I've ever seen.

Please pray for a few things for us:
1. Dad would be kept comfortable at all costs.
2. Billy and I would be able to make the best decisions for Dad - not letting him suffer pointlessly but also not giving up on things before we should. It's a very fine line and one that I never anticipated having to navigate.
3. That Billy and I would be able to support each other through this - we both have career's that we cannot put on hold indefinitely. That being said, we also don't want to have any regrets that we were't there for Dad, etc. when this is all said and done.


Thank all of you for your prayers and support. It means the world to get an email, a text or a phone call. Just to know others are thinking about us is very comforting.