I'm not handling it very well. It isn't unexpected, as he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 2003 (but is suspected to have contracted it during the Vietnam War.) The interferon treatment that he underwent placed him at higher risk for liver cancer in the future, but it basically "cured" the Hep C. (They will never consider the Hep C gone, but there are no longer any detectable levels of Hep C in his body.) We just didn't expect the cancer so soon. He's only 58 years old.
He has been on the liver transplant list since his diagnosis in 2003 due to cirrhosis but his MELD score was only an 8 so he wasn't eligible for the transplant yet. The hepatocellular carcinoma bumped his MELD score to a 23 and if he can keep the cancer in check that score will increase by about three points every three months until he is at a high enough score for them to actively look for a liver for him. That score is usually around 30 at the hospital he is being treated at. That means he could have a transplant as early as March (when his score will be 29) or June (when it will be 32.) Considering his blood type (O-) a liver will be harder to find for him. Did you know that only 7% of the US population is O-?
At this point he has had two treatments to shrink the tumor. The first treatment, chemoembolization, didn't work. And not only did it not work but it created a clot in his portal vein that prevented them from doing the procedure a second time. So they did a second procedure called radiofrequency ablation. We go tomorrow (December 23) to find out if this procedure worked and the tumor has shrunk.
I'm terrified. I should be making edible Christmas gifts, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, mopping my kitchen, getting together meals and snacks for tomorrow for the babysitter, and wrapping Marc's Christmas gifts. Instead I'm sitting here, nearly paralized with fear that the procedure didn't work and they will take my dad off of the transplant list.
How do I put the fear in a box so I can get on with my life? There is nothing to be accomplished with worrying over this (that's what my father keeps saying), and yet I keep hearing what my mother confided in me over and over in my head and it scares me. She said that, one day while she and my dad were having a bit of an argument over something, he said that life would be so much easier for everyone if he just died. I'm so afraid that if this procedure didn't work that he will just give up. Those words are so not like him, which is what scares me the most. He's not the kind of guy to just give up.
On top of all of this we're dealing with one 88-year-old grandfather with heart problems who has an aneurysm in his groin that he has to have surgery to remove in January. And the other grandfather has been battling prostate cancer since March. Due to a mass on his bladder (that didn't show up until after the radiation treatment) he has to catheterize himself every single time he uses the bathroom since March!!!!! It isn't safe for the doctors to open him up to remove the bladder mass yet because of the radiation pellets and we have no way of knowing whether the mass is cancerous.
And it's Christmastime. *sigh* I just want to give up, to curl up in bed with a book and pretend nothing is happening.
He has been on the liver transplant list since his diagnosis in 2003 due to cirrhosis but his MELD score was only an 8 so he wasn't eligible for the transplant yet. The hepatocellular carcinoma bumped his MELD score to a 23 and if he can keep the cancer in check that score will increase by about three points every three months until he is at a high enough score for them to actively look for a liver for him. That score is usually around 30 at the hospital he is being treated at. That means he could have a transplant as early as March (when his score will be 29) or June (when it will be 32.) Considering his blood type (O-) a liver will be harder to find for him. Did you know that only 7% of the US population is O-?
At this point he has had two treatments to shrink the tumor. The first treatment, chemoembolization, didn't work. And not only did it not work but it created a clot in his portal vein that prevented them from doing the procedure a second time. So they did a second procedure called radiofrequency ablation. We go tomorrow (December 23) to find out if this procedure worked and the tumor has shrunk.
I'm terrified. I should be making edible Christmas gifts, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, mopping my kitchen, getting together meals and snacks for tomorrow for the babysitter, and wrapping Marc's Christmas gifts. Instead I'm sitting here, nearly paralized with fear that the procedure didn't work and they will take my dad off of the transplant list.
How do I put the fear in a box so I can get on with my life? There is nothing to be accomplished with worrying over this (that's what my father keeps saying), and yet I keep hearing what my mother confided in me over and over in my head and it scares me. She said that, one day while she and my dad were having a bit of an argument over something, he said that life would be so much easier for everyone if he just died. I'm so afraid that if this procedure didn't work that he will just give up. Those words are so not like him, which is what scares me the most. He's not the kind of guy to just give up.
On top of all of this we're dealing with one 88-year-old grandfather with heart problems who has an aneurysm in his groin that he has to have surgery to remove in January. And the other grandfather has been battling prostate cancer since March. Due to a mass on his bladder (that didn't show up until after the radiation treatment) he has to catheterize himself every single time he uses the bathroom since March!!!!! It isn't safe for the doctors to open him up to remove the bladder mass yet because of the radiation pellets and we have no way of knowing whether the mass is cancerous.
And it's Christmastime. *sigh* I just want to give up, to curl up in bed with a book and pretend nothing is happening.
That is just so sad. It's okay and perfectly normal to be sad and upset over this. I don't think you have to try to push it aside. Just do the best you can. Lots of 
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