Tycho Talk

Well, Dad had another heart attack. This makes five. I was thinking it was six, but no, Elaine says five.

She called me this morning to tell me; she was weirdly calm. I remarked on that and she seemed surprised and said she was a wreck, but she has been through this so maybe she's getting used to it. The cancer scare seemed to have evaporated somehow, which I didn't quite understand. Everyone was sure he had myeloma, then it seemed like no one's mentioned it except to say something along the lines of, well, that wasn't it, everything's awesome- until today, anyway. Aaaaand, after speaking with Elaine- basically, they're still waiting on the test results. Dad's in denial and is sure everything is fine- or at least that's what he's telling me. Elaine says she's almost certain he's got cancer, but we'll find out in a couple of weeks.

This is really helping me work on my Zen acceptance of things I have no control over. Not to make it about meeeeee. Dad's apparently already bitching about the hospital attire they're making him wear, but still and all, if you've got good vibes to spare I'm sure he can make use of them. But damn; dude's 77 and on heart attack five and bitching about his hospital gown.

Dad went in for a brain scan yesterday. His wife Elaine called me and informed me that he doesn't have Alzheimer's, as previously assumed. He has frontotemporal dementia, which affects a different area of the brain. It might as well be Alzheimer's, though- the prognosis is the same. It slowly dissolves your brain and eventually kills you. The (I realize that this is not the best word to use) "good" news is that it seems to work a little faster than Alzheimer's. Based on various indications, he's already a year or two into it. So he's probably got a few years left at most.

He knows, which is why this post is unlocked. She and his primary doc (and me, for that matter) have suspected something like this, but were not saying anything to him until it was confirmed. He's still in denial; Elaine was frank once he got the diagnosis and said she would care for him as long as she could, but eventually he's going to have to go into a nursing home (sooner rather than later- he's 6'2" and strong, she's maybe 5'3" and has severe arthritis). He said she was over-reacting and that he would be fine. He won't. Denial. *sigh*

None of this is good news. But as to how this affects me, there's some bad news. From the Wikipedia article:

A higher proportion of FTD cases seem to have a familial component (perhaps more so than Alzheimer's disease). Two known mutations are associated with familial FTD: [genetic blather I don't understand] However, it is estimated that each of these two genes only accounts for about 5–10% of all cases of FTD, thus other genes or heritable components are likely responsible for the high degree of heritability in FTD.

In other words, Brö and I have a chance of getting this. Or, having it already. Also from the article:

Because FTD often occurs in younger people (i.e. in their 40's or 50's), it can severely affect families. Patients often still have children living in the home. Financially, it can be devastating as the disease strikes at the time of life that is often the top wage-earning years.

Fuck. I was really hoping we could pin this on his alcoholism. I guess I should give my doctor a call.

Dad is apparently doing really well. Yesterday his enzymes and EKG apparently indicated that not only did he have a heart attack, but that severe damage was done to the heart muscles and the doctor was all "you're gonna die, scro" but today, his enzymes and EKG look normal. He's going to be in a regular room out of ICU very shortly. Then, I can call him. I'm very relieved!

Back from People's Pharmacy, the granola-iest pharmacy I've ever been in. I have a bundle of syringes of the anti-anxiety Amitriptyline (also known as Elavil) that kitty's gonna get every evening. And I have another bundle of syringes of Diazepam- better known as Valium- to be administered as needed. Which means probably most days we're dealing with construction (just found out we're going to be getting a new roof thanks to the hail- she'll love that). Vet says the Valium should last for 8 hours. Sleep! Sleep for everybody!

After I tried to be all reassuring and calm for everyone else last night I just had myself a little meltdown at work. Supervisors love that, especially the men. I spent the rest of my shift fretting. But I figured it was going to be better to go ahead to rehearsal than to go home and fret, with Eric being at D&D- though to be fair, he offered to stay home and... I dunno, watch me fret, which doesn't seem all that fun for him. Stephen was kind enough to come over after and watch me drink Eric's port and keep me company until Eric got home. I hadn't eaten since 11am, and it didn't really occur to me to be hungry until 11pm (pretty unusual for me) so off to Whataburger. It made for strange dreams.

I'm now at work, fretting. Thing Two (of Dad's treatment options) doesn't seem to be working, and now they want to do some exploratory thing by sticking a scope down his esophagus to look at his heart. That doesn't make any sense to me from what I know about anatomy, but I trust they know what they're doing. The results of this will determine what happens next, I think; there's a chance he might even get to go home soon. I just hope he can make it down for Christmas, but I should probably be prepared to make a trip to Sweetwater.

Okay- I just got a call from Elaine. They stuck the thing down his throat and defibrillated his heart from the inside. She hadn't ever heard of that, which makes two of us. But it worked! So he won't have to go to Fort Worth. Yay! She said I could call him in an hour or so, and I'll be doing that.

I was driving home from a concert in Oklahoma yesterday, and Dad called when I was about 2 hours from home. Mom had a CT scan to figure out what was going on; they had seen 'something' on her pre-surgery chest x-ray. Turns out she has lung cancer as well as cancer in her esophagus (or maybe the other pipe, it wasn't clear). This is just the report from the guy who read the CT, so no treatment options have been discussed yet with the oncologist. Elaine is guessing that they probably won't pursue any treatment, which would kill her, and just let this kill her; it will probably take less than a year.

She doesn't want to tell us, so when I talk to her I am not supposed to let on that I know anything until she decides to let me know. I made no promises, since she's pretty sharp and can pick up on my moods pretty well.

I hope she tells me soon, so I can tell her that I won't be nagging her about her smoking anymore. She will be glad to hear that.

Dad, mister terse, pinged me on AIM and in his ALL CAPS charming way, said Mom was out of surgery. She apparently is in ICU for the night, because "something" happened to her breathing but whatever it was, "they fixed it." Ooookay. I will try to call Elaine and try to get the scoop, but his final summation seemed to be that Mom was okay. I don't think I'm doing a great job of protecting the unprotected here (though Amanda gave me cake, and that didn't hurt- it was really good cake) so I think I might bug out of here soon.

Mom visited with the surgeon yesterday.

Since there are 2 areas of cancer, lumpectomies are not an option. So the whole breast is coming off. It's not 100% clear if the cancer is all in the breast or in the muscle below it, so once he gets in there and finds that out he'll decide if she needs radiation after- hopefully not. He's going to take the lymph nodes nearby out too, which seems like a sensible precaution. Cancer likes to hitch a ride out on lymph nodes, I hear.

This is happening next Wednesday (1/24). She's pretty unhappy about it... I don't really get that deep down, but I know that's not unusual at all. I remember when I got my hysterectomy reading about a lot of women who mourned losing their uterus and felt like they were somehow incomplete; I was just glad to get rid of the damn thing. But they took her out to eat to cheer her up- I'm glad she has family to be with her through this. I am definitely going to detour over there in February. Maybe I'll surprise her... or maybe I'll tell her soon so she'll have something to look forward to.

I called the folks for my usual Wednesday chat, and Dad had finally heard back about his kidney spot.

Gone! The spot was completely gone. His doc was sure it was cancer from the ultrasound, but when they did the CT scan, nothing. So either it was a mistaken reading, or he had a kidney stone that went away (he says he thinks he would've noticed that), or the prayers, candles, goats and whatnot made it disappear. He's going to get a second opinion if he can, but he's cautiously optimistic.

Yay!

Tomorrow Mom meets with the oncologist to see what treatment options he wants to pursue. She says she's feeling resigned. She doesn't even know how bad the cancer is at this point. More news as I get it.

My mom has breast cancer. Fuck.

There is no other information; she had a biopsy last week and that's all they told her today. They're meeting with the oncologist in a week to find out how big/much, what now, etc.

And Dad has 'something' on his kidneys, he's going for a CT scan tomorrow to get more information on that.

When it rains, it fuckin' pours, huh?