Prognosis? Needing a Miracle

 I posted this on my facebook and thought I would share it here as well...

Well, today was the day for dad's CT scan to see if the treatment has worked. Before the oncology team could meet, it was discovered (thanks to the CT), that he has a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lung). He was not having any of the major presenting symptoms, so if it were not for the CT, this would have not been discovered at least today! So that is good news. They will be treating him with shots of heparin, most likely Lovenox if my guess is right.
As for the cancer, they are saying that it does not appear that there has been any change in the tumor size. They had a hard time making a 100% definitive on that because the stent he has in place makes it a little hard to read the results, but it does not look as if it has receded. Also, they are saying that he cannot undergo any more chemotherapy because he is still medically unstable and if they do any more, they fear it would kill him. That is not to say that they can't look at this again if his condition stabilizes. One positive thing is that he is doing LESS vomiting which makes life much more comfortable for him. Eating is still a big problem, drinking goes pretty good--so they are continuing to give him nutrients through a pick line.
The really hard news is that they are saying that they expect he only has 6 months to live.
This is obviously hard. 6 months! That flies by so fast. Of course, that is not a set-in-stone timeline. Patient to patient, these things can go very differently.

Now we look at the short-term care and long-term care options. Dad REALLY wants to come home...REALLY! He has been stuck at that facility since the first part of April. He would have to be stable especially with the blood pressure drops and falling and I assume with the nutrition as well.
So your prayers are needed. This morning I only allowed myself to pray for one thing and that was for a miracle. I told God that as the day progressed if I needed to change my request I would. Now I am not sure if I should. We still need a miracle. Essentially as we have known all along, this cancer is not curable in these later stages. But God can do this. I don't know if He will, so I am needing to put one foot in front of the other and walk through this with my family. Strength is needed; grace is needed; joy is needed--it's hard to come by these days. Lorryn's death was a real shock and hit us hard. This was another hard hit for sure.