Father's Day Update

Wow, it is hard to believe it is Sunday. Time slows down in the hospital. My dad has had some good days and some not so good days.

I guess I haven't explained what the situation is here. My dad has pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed in December 2006, six months before we moved off to our island. It was a rough move for everyone. We were living 4 hours from my parents, and we moved more than 2000 miles away.

My dad has responded well to his medication for the most part. He has been able to lead a relatively normal life, without the cancer being the main focus. The last six months there have been some setbacks as two different medications have failed.

Now, unfortunately, the tumor has spread to his stomach. That was causing the extreme pain he was experiencing two weeks ago. The surgery he had on Wednesday was to attach his small intestine to the stomach in a different area since the tumor was encroaching and blocking there. This procedure is only a way to provide a nutrition pathway, it is not to eleviate pain or fight the tumor at all. One always hopes that it will help with the pain, but that was not the primary purpose. My parents both want to pursue a new drug treatment, so hopefully the primary doctor will start with that soon.

So now we are dealing with the recovery from surgery. Abdominal surgery is pretty intense. He has had some good days and some bad days. We are hopeful he will be able to be released from the hospital next week sometime. I will be staying longer and hopefully be able to help with the house and grocery shoppping.

Anyway, sorry for the long drawn out explanation, but I wanted to tell the story.

On to a little stitching news:

I have been working on the home of a needleworker. I decided to change the old blue jeans (Crescent Colors) to a purple, since I am a purple girl.





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