Argh! I just wrote a long blog and when I posted my session had expired and I lost the whole thing! OK, let's try this again... Things are looking pretty rough right now. Dad has intense pain in his gut/stomach when he eats, and has stopped eating altogether. The last time he had something was Wednesday, and that was only about 300 cals for the whole day - not enough! The doctors wanted to try a feeding tube, but he is very adamant about not going that route, so I suggested trying marijuana. He asked for Marinol instead, which is synthetic THC in pill form. I talked to the doctors and asked if we could try that, and they agreed. We all decided together that a low dose to start was a good idea, since he's not a pot smoker - even though he looks like he would be! He's been on 2.5mg 2x/day starting on Wednesday night. I stuck around to see how he did with it, considering THC can have some negative side effects like paranoia and whatnot. He had none of that, and it seemed to really help with the pain, although he was still not hungry. He's been talking a lot lately about quality of life, and that if he can't get any better than this, he doesn't want to continue trying to fight the inevitable. I took the afternoon off of work yesterday to go talk to him about this, and he was apologetic and worried that people would be angry with him, but continued to insist that he didn't see much point in fighting. Hopefully the chemo will start to have a positive effect rather than the painful one he's had so far, and he will come back around. If not though, it is my full intent to support him in whatever decision he makes, I just want him to commit to a decision, fight or lay down - there is no in between! I would much prefer the fight option, of course, but as Nate pointed out to me, I can't know what's going on in his body or in his head, and it is his decision to make.
After talking with him yesterday I read to him for several hours. While I was reading, he was given Dilaudid and Marinol, and after a while he said "can we stop here?" I stopped reading and said "sure!" He looked at me for a second and then explained that he didn't want me to stop reading, he was just so into the story that he wanted to stop and look at something that was described in the book. Man, maybe I could get one of those pills and we can go on a trip together! 
Around 9, he started to drift off to sleep, so I closed the book and got ready to go. I planned on taking more time off of work today, but I'm not sure how much I can swing. Hopefully I can get back over there soon!I would like to ask that anyone who has something to say to my dad post either in a blog comment or on the "Shout @ John" section so that I can make sure he sees it. I don't know what the future holds for him, but right now, it's looking fairly bleak.Much love and happiness to you all!
Quick Update (@10:00AM) :: Dad just called wondering if I was coming over this morning. Since I have too much work to blow off another afternoon, I'm going to pack up and work from over there. I had asked yesterday for them to move him to another room, because his roommate has some sort of illness with a fever - don't want to take any chances! I asked the other day as well, but my reasoning then was that it would be nice if he had a roommate he could have a conversation with if he wanted to. So they are moving him today. Now, I ask him every once in a while if he'll go outside with me, and he hasn't wanted to. Just now he said that if he's feeling up to it after the move, he'd like me to take him out to the garden and hang out for a bit. I'm excited!! Also - Erin will be here 7/28 - 7/30, and Tony is coming on 7/29, probably staying through the weekend. I'm excited to see them and Dad is too!!