The more powerful of the two chemo meds given today will probably cause what everyone's seen in cancer patients time and time again - the hair loss.  We all know how my Dad loves his long henna reddened hair!  He and I talked about this possibility last time I was here though, and we have a plan; I'm going to shave it off and save it for him.  I'm really not sure what we can do with it, but I'm open to suggestions!  I don't think it's suitable for locks of love or anything like that, but I would like to turn it in to some sort of memento.  His doctor said that it may not fall out, but if it's going to, it will start to fall out in a week or two or three.  If he notices that it's not going to stick on his head, I'll run over with some clippers and shear him.  Then I'll take pictures of his silly bald head and we can all laugh. 

So I did take part of the morning off today, and met Dad at the hospital after his radiation at Stanford.  While he doesn't feel particularly bad after radiation, it does wipe him out, so he was very tired.  I wheeled him in to the oncology clinic and suprisingly, he was seen for vitals right away, and then very shortly after Dr. Rhee brought us in to the chemo area.  I was surprised because the other times I've been at the oncology clinic with Dad, we've had to wait 1 - 2 hours before anybody even does his vitals.  I guess being really sick gets you a cutting in line pass!  Dr. Rhee spent some time explaining the medications and how everything would go down, and said she'd see him afterwards.  For the more intense med, he has to be fully hydrated, so they sucked out some blood for testing, stuck him with a saline drip and we waited.  Before he was hydrated enough, I had to bail and get back for work.  He promised to call me after he's done, and if I'm done with work I'll go over there and try to see if I can take him back to Menlo Park myself.  He's getting three different nausea meds, so hopefully that part will be the least of his worries, instead of the worst.

So as it stands now, he will continue the radiation through the 20th, and he will have chemo today and next Tuesday, then two weeks off, then two more treatments, a week apart like this time.  After that he will have another PET/CT (hopefully this time without anything being broken!) and we will know more then.  We are cutting it close, but after the PET/CT we will know for sure if he can brave the wilderness and get his tushie to Burning Man.

Just a note, some of you are veterans, or have veterans in your family, so you have been around VA hospitals, but just wanted to post a little about my perspective from today, while I was waiting outside for Dad.  I've been around vets and VA hospitals all my life, but until my Dad's life bcame dependent on the staff, I didn't pay as much attention as I cuold have.  It's such a unique place, a community, of sorts.  The vets are all so broken, either by time or by war, many times by both.  Broken or not, they are full of pride, and almost always full of smiles and have a hello for anyone who wants one.  A man with one leg and an oxygen tank wheeled by me today and winked at me like he had a special secret.  Another man sat next to me and grumbled about appointments taking too long, but didn't forget to introduce himself and tell me to have a great day when I left the bench.  Vets have a love/hate relationship with VA hospitals.  It's their haven, and some of the staff are their angels, but they know it should be better, and want someone to notice that most VAs are not quite up to par with most private hospitals.  I don't really have a point with this, I just wanted to write down some of the things that stuck with me today, so thanks for reading!