Hi all,
I'm glad I found this site. My name's Christopher, the son of a 69 year old dad who has stage IV LC and brain mets.
Dad was diagnosed on 12/2/05 while hospitalized for stroke like symptoms. The found a 5.8 mass on his right upper lobe and some irregularities in his brain. After a few CTs, it was found that he had a large brain metastasis in his right frontal lobe, and a smaller one in his left side.
We were setup with a treatment plan that the brain mets were "treatable", and then they'd treat the lung with chemo. During dad's hospitalization, they found blockage on both sides of the charatoid arteries. They were going to evaluate the arteries after the radiation treatmeant to the brain mets.
Dad finished up 10 treatments of radiation to the brain on 12/28. He was feeling pretty good, but was getting tired every day. One week after his 10th treatment, he was really wiped out. All he wanted to do was sleep. On 1/5/06, he was hospitalized because he wasn't able get up. He was dehydrated and still wanted to sleep. The following days after his hospitalization, something happened. He became incoherent and wasn't able to open his eyes. For about a week, we was getting IV fluid and the doctors were adjusting his meds. He was on Decadron. They have been slowing the doseage down.
Fast forward to today, the 23rd. He's been hospitalized since the 5th of January. The doctors do not believe his mental state will return. We have been told to contact hospice. My dad is 69 years old and was "healthy" up until the 5th of January. He's now confined to the bed and will open is eyes and talk a little bit. His mental state still has not returned.
Has anyone experienced this? The oncologist says that people with his condition, mass and mets, the average life expectancy is 2-4 months. With dad's current condition, we're not sure where we are at. We can't watch him suffer and need to make sure he's comfortable.
Chemo is out of the question, as they want to make his remaining time comfortable. The problem that I have, is that he is not comfortable. If he knew what type of condition he was in, he wouldn't want to continue.
Sorry for the long post, I'm just frustrated that after a short time after his radiation treatment, my dad has become like this. We are working with the hospice team to see what can be done to bring him home.
If anyone has experience with hospice and when you knew your loved one's last days was, I'd appreciate to hear about it.
Thanks,
Christopher