I woke up this morning in a little bit better mood. The good wishes from friends and family alike really do work. They are all appreciated and they do not go unnoticed. Not one. So thank you all. As usual we were running a little late. I had told my mother that we would be there about ten or eleven. We rolled up at noon. Dad looked great. Much better then he did in the hospital. He was eating sticky fingers courtesy of Tahna. I was not only jealous but happy to see he was able to do so. In the hospital they were not even sure of that.

Now the hospice gal told us he would have good days and we would wonder if we made the right choice on not operating but I didn't know it would be the first day! He really looked good. He looked tired and could move nothing but his head and arm but he acknowledged the kids and did his usual baby talk to Nat to make her squeal. We left at 2:30 to get me to the airport. I write this from the droid waiting to get on a plane to Ontario. The visit made it a lot easier to leave for a couple of days.

Rob and I originally planned dinner for Thursday but he is flying to SL tomorrow morning. It will be nice to see him.
It was also nice to see Jordan and his family. I was glad to hear they got here with minimal issues.

Joe

Joe's feelings

Sunday Morning I got a call from my Sister Susie that my Dad was on the way to the hospital. He had fell on Saturday and had been acting a little odd the last few days.When he fell he hit his head on the cold air return and really caused a gash in his head. At that moment they were not sure if he just tripped or passed out or what.

When they got him to the hospital they had a cat scan done and the first thing my family was told was that he had had another stroke. Not good...They wanted to confirm this with an MRI but were unable to because he was not stable. He kept throwing up and was all around not good.LeAnn and I went to go visit him on Sunday February 27th.

We went to the ICU to see my Father.He seemed okay. He said hello when we arrived, held my hand and was I believe aware that we were there. He said I love you when we left and I did think he knew we were there.We would have stayed longer but LeAnn had to work.

Monday I went to go and see him at Lunch time. He again seemed like he was in good spirits and happy to have guests. At this time they had a chance to do the MRI and found that my dad actually had a tumor in his brain. They are speculating that this was what caused his stroke 16 months ago. They were unable to see it then because of all the blood that was present when they did the MRI way back then.Now they say the tumor is about the size of a tennis ball. It is operable but we as a family believe that my father would not want that. We all met on Monday night and agreed that we would not have the operation done. It was a tough choice. An operation would only extend his life 3 to 6 months and he would not have even the quality of life he had a month ago when we was still struggling and sad with his original stroke.Conveniently my Mother finally got his living will finished only days before this happened. A little bit of revelation I believe.

I felt inclined to head over to the Hospital early this morning. I found my Mother and sister Tahna talking to the Hospice lady. She was explaining the procedure. My Mother wanted my Dad to come home as soon as possible so I took the remainder of today off and went over to my Mothers to move some furniture around to accommodate a hospital bed. We got that all sorted out and I went home.I got home to LeAnn getting ready for work. We spoke briefly on what we should do. We decided that we would leave the kids home the next morning and go spend the afternoon with my Dad. We decided that we would tell the kids what is going on in the morning.At dinner Seth asked my about Grandpa so I did not have the heart to hold him off. So I told him what was going on. I explained everything.I could tell that Seth was sad about it but the other two I was not sure. Kamryn just kept repeating what I was saying along with a few mixed words of her own.Of course she got most of it right and she just kept saying "Grandpa is dying, he is dead". I though wow, lets not repeat that tomorrow while we are there. Maybe she was a little young to be in the room during the conversation.The one I was most worried about is Ryker. Would he understand what is going on? He is 4 but smart as a whip. Tonight was bath night and I asked him what he was feeling about Grandpa. He told me sadness. He hesitated then said, but I don't think I am as sad as you. I asked him why he would think that. He said, because he is your Dad. A pure example of how smart kids truly are.I decided to ask the same think to Seth and he also said he was sad about Grandpa and said he would miss him.. He then asked if they could still visit Grandma when he was gone. I told them absolutely. She would love that.

From Joe

Dad's going home today

Dad is going home today. He will have hospice + us kids help mom out at home. There is no time frame for Dad. We just don't know. Whenever the Lord wants him back home is when he'll go. The doctor's have no time frame. We will enjoy our time left with him. We love you dad!

No surgery

We just came from a family meeting and decided not to do surgery on the tumor. The doctor said it was so large he would not be able to get it all and on what was left, we would have to do radiation/chemo. Even on a healthy person, the aggressiveness of the tumor would allow the patient to live less than 1 year. Since dad is not very healthy, it would be even less than that. We know he would not want to live with the pain of radiation/chemo.

Mom is talking with hospice people tomorrow morning to determine when he can come home and live out his days there.

Dad has lived a long, wonderful life, and has touched so many people. I know he and mom would appreciate any visitors as soon as he is settled at home.

We will keep you posted.

Cancer

We talked with the doctor today about dad's MRI. He has a tumor 7 cm big, just smaller than a tennis ball. The Dr. believes his original stroke in 2009 was caused by this tumor that bled. Because of the bleeding, they did not see the tumor then. They are 99.9% sure the tumor is malignant. They won't know 100% without a biopsy.

He is comfortable and sometimes coherant. We love him so much!

Still waiting...

We are still waiting for them to do the MRI. He won't stop vomiting, so they can't do it yet. They hope to do it tonight and will have the results tomorrow morning. They are kicking us out now, so we'll resume in the morning.

Thanks to everyone for your well-wishes and prayers.

Dad in the hospital once again :(

Yesterday afternoon about 3:30 pm, Dad was walking with his walker from the living room to the kitchen when he fell and hit his head on the wall. Mom had a neighbor come help her get him up. She called the Dr. and he said to watch for symptoms of concusion and so forth. She watched all night, but nothing showed up. This morning, as they were getting ready for church, Dad was very pale, very sleepy, he wouldn't respond to Mom except to say "OK" to everything she said. She knew something was wrong so she called the ambulance. As they were preparing him, he started throwing up. This was approx 11:00 am.

Mom called us kids and we headed down to the hospital. When we got here, we were told that he had had a stroke. We tried to talk to him, but he couldn't really talk, but knew we were there. After a little while, the Dr. said he was looking at the cat scan and didn't think it was a stroke, but something else. He wouldn't tell us what. He received a blessing. He was scheduled for an MRI and transfered from the ER to ICU.

After further looking at the x-rays, the Dr. said that it actually looked like a tumor, but wouldn't know for sure until the MRI was done either tonight or tomorrow.