Sad News

Sad News

Our “Road Trip” has hit a particularly rough spot. Ann has not been well for the last 2-3 months. Very low energy, persistent cough, and back/side pain. Ann felt so weak that we postponed our early June trip to MD Anderson in Houston. She was to receive CT scans and a consultation with the oncologist there. We were able to reschedule them for July 1 hoping Ann would feel better by then. Improvement didn’t happen so last week her oncologist here at Sanford decided it’s time to do scans here and not wait for them to be done in Houston. He suspected that her symptoms had to do with advancing and worsening cancer and his suspicions were confirmed. The cancer in her liver is considerably worse. Liver function is declining. The cancer has also advanced to areas outside of her kidney, outside of her heart, and is starting to show up in her lungs. His recommendation was to halt chemo and switch to home hospice care to make the rest of her life as painless and meaningful as possible, but he also sent the scans to our oncologist at MD Anderson for invite her opinion. Yesterday she called us and, after carefully looking at the scans and comparing them to the February scans, she agrees with our Sanford oncologist. The only remaining treatment options would be quite painful and make Ann’s remaining months more miserable with almost no chance of slowing the cancer.

We had an initial meeting with Sanford Hospice last week but held off committing until we heard from our Houston oncologist. Hospice care will now begin next week. Ann sleeps a lot and has mild pain that is pretty well managed. We watch too much Brit Box TV but that brings her comfort.

We knew this was coming, but still, it’s hard when it does. Ann is probably handling it better than I am. Tears come easily, but we both have tremendous support here from friends and medical professionals.

I will continue to post here on “A Roadtrip With Cancer” to keep you informed. You are all very special to us in so many ways. Art and music are still important and comforting to me and actually to both of us. I don’t have any appropriate paintings or sketches to include with this post except this iPad sketch. It’s supposed to be Ann in her two most common positions on the couch sleeping and checking out Cocodoodle, Poodle, and Parrot videos on Facebook :)

Sending this with Love to all of you,

Gary and Ann

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