I started this blog with the intention of writing at least one post a day, not just loading up a queue to make sure something appear every day. What is the saying about planning what you are going to do and then God laughs? I certainly hope that God isn't laughing about our current situation.
I was born "late in life" for my parents or at least, at the time, I was considered late. My mom was 34 and my dad was 38 when I was born. I do have a brother and sister, but they are both older than I am. At my current age, ahem in my 40s, that makes my mom and dad 77 and 80, respectively. My dad has worked manual labor jobs all of his life and was still working at age 80 until he got the Stage 4 Esophageal Cancer diagnosis. For someone who hated doctors and wouldn't tell you if anything was bothering him, he certainly has seen more than his fair share of doctors and specialists, with everyone asking him how he feels and what his diagnosis is.
For the past 10 days, dad has been in the hospital. After taking chemo and still working for several months, he hit what I'm calling a speed bump (I'll hope that is all that it is, but only time will tell). It was about a month ago when they decided to try a type of "cryotherapy" or "Cryoablation" to try to freeze away some of the tumor. Ever since he got out of that procedure, he has been feeling a lot worse. He's not worked in over a month and he mostly sleeps, which is what he's doing now as I'm typing. For several weeks, we took him to different doctors and the ER, but only got different variations of "he's 80, he has cancer, and he's taking chemo, what do you expect?". I expect the doctor to listen to what is being said and offer some kind of suggestion or explanation as to why dad is going down hill so quickly. He's not been able to get down and keep down much of anything, and we're concerned that he's losing weight and has no energy.
After many weeks of that, his oncologist came back from an overseas trip and admitted him to the hospital. The blood work showed that dad was dehydrated and malnourished. It's really hard to think about how hungry he was and that he would have slowly starved to death if something hadn't been done.
My question about all this: what happens to someone who doesn't have anyone advocating for them? Someone who keeps bugging the doctors and trying to get someone help? Is this the way we treat the elderly and others who cannot speak for themselves? There has to be a better way.
I heard recently that a supervisor said to an employee that "your family and personal life shouldn't get in the way of your job." I'm not sure how that's possible, unless you hire single orphans who have no outside interests. Do we live to work or work to live?
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