the middle
We brought my dad home from the hospital after a week of chaos. We made some sort of progress in terms that we were able to get him into Sloan Memorial Cancer Center to see some of the most well-respected doctors who specialize in pancreatic cancer. Life was semi-normal the week we brought him home. He gravitated back to his normal spot on the couch and watched some of his favorite YouTube channels. He still wasn’t really eating and had a lot of trouble going to the bathroom.
The hardest part was seeing my dad not being able to keep food down. He got very nauseous after he ate and was really picky about what he would and wouldn’t eat. Like I said in my previous post, it was really hard to see my dad with no appetite. We shared a few more meals as a family sitting around the dinner table, but they were nowhere close to normal.
The other hardest part was waking up to hearing my dad cry in the morning. My body would freeze up and my heart would just sink. If I heard this diagnosis, I too would probably cry every day. I would grab my pillow or my stuffed dog and bring myself into his room and just lay with him. I could only speak for myself, but I think it is fair to say that we all lived in fear with what the next day could bring.
Once we were able to finally see the doctors at Sloan, they gave us a few options. They said as long as my dad remained strong, he could do chemotherapy. There were 3 levels to chemo and my dad could only do the highest one as long as he kept eating and remained level-headed. The most difficult thing to hear from the doctor was that 1. surgery is not an option and 2. there is no cure for what my dad has, the chemo would only slow down the cancer.
I never had anyone that I was super close to have cancer. Everything was extremely new to me. I was confused as to why surgery couldn’t help, and I kept asking what the point of chemo was if it wasn’t a cure. In the meantime, we were bringing my dad to Sloan to get hydration treatments. Looking back on it, the treatments weren’t really that helpful.
I didn’t know much about the effects of chemo and I still really don’t. But me and my sister were completely head strong about my dad doing the treatment. We wanted him to get better, but I don’t think we understood completely what chemo could do to a person’s body. I kept telling my dad that because he survived everything else, he could survive this. I really truly believed that. He had already survived 9/11, he survived almost drowning in the Marines, and he survived multiple fires where he was seriously injured. There was no doubt in my mind that whatever life threw at him, that this would be no exception.
My dad wanted to make us happy and said he would do the treatment. But when he went into the doctors office, he would tell them otherwise. He just wanted to ride it out. He even went as far as putting the port into his chest where the chemo would be administered. Once I read the packet that Sloan gave to us, there was no way in hell I wanted my dad to do chemo. The side effects were awful. Loss of hair, fingernails, vomiting, nausea, extremely dry skin, weakened immune system. The list just went on. At first, I was angry that he didn’t want to do the chemo but after learning what it could do, I understood and respected his decision.
In fact, I respected his decision more to not do the chemo. He was facing cancer head on. To me, that is one of the bravest things that someone could do. Especially since he was told that he had only 6 to 9 months to live (if that) and that his cancer was so aggressive. Through this whole process my family was also told that 9/11 related cancers are cancers on steroids. They are more aggressive and deadly.
My dad hated taking his Lovenox (a shot for the blood clots). He had to take this shot 2 times a day in order for the blood clots to disappear. Although he had many other medicines, this medicine was almost his lifeline. If he didn’t take the Lovenox then he would be at risk for a stroke which is obviously deadly.
As the weeks progressed, each day was new. Some days my dad was great and other days not so much. The doctors said that even though he had cancer in his liver, it was still functioning properly and as long as the liver was functioning properly, we were still in good shape. Well he went about 4 weeks with his liver being okay until it wasn’t.
My dad became very confused, he kept asking “why does my stomach hurt so much?” Then he began to not eat entirely. I would come home from work and would try to trick him into eating an ice pop with me. My mom and my sister would try all day long while I was gone to get him to eat. My sister made concoctions of protein powder, supplements, and ice cream just to get something into his system. Each day at least two or three new minerals and vitamins were coming to the house. She did so much research in terms of natural remedies that could help and shrink the cancer cells, but nothing seemed to ever work.
Within one week everything changed. He did some more blood work where they found that his tumor markers jumped from 200 to 700 within just 6 days. To put it into prospective, a normal tumor marker is less than 2.5. They also suspected that he was becoming more confused due to a tumor sitting the wrong way in his liver, therefore not allowing his liver to filter the toxins out the way that it should.
My dad went skydiving with me in September. How could a man who was just jumping 10,000 feet out of a plane with me all of a sudden not be okay to get out of bed? How could a man who walked 5 miles every day, all of a sudden be out of breath doing a lap around the block? I will never forget the day I took him for a short walk. It was a warm day in October, and it was absolutely gorgeous out. As I held his arm, he looked up and said, “I just want to drift into the clouds.” It was in that moment; I knew he wanted to go to a better place. A place without pain and a place without cancer.
My dad made a choice to do hospice. I begged and pleaded with him to not make this choice, but I knew at this point the options were limited. I knew that there wasn’t much left for the doctors to do if he was opting out of chemo. I knew that hospice was a service that helped people transition to be more comfortable as they were dying. The day that they delivered that hospice bed all I wanted to do was throw it out. I didn’t want my dad going anywhere near that bed because I knew and we all knew that if he was to get it in it, there may be no turning back.
November 6th scared the living shit out of me. It was the week that my dad was going in and out of being lucid. I came home from work that evening and my dad was having one of those days where he wasn’t feeling well. At this point he had lost at least nearly 20 or 30 pounds, he refused to shave his beard, and didn’t look anything like himself. I remember sitting on the floor next to the couch with him and the look in his eyes shattered my soul.
November 10th, the Marine Corps birthday, we supported my dad by wearing his favorite USMC shirts. This was the last full day my dad was with us, but we knew that he knew what we were doing for him. Each year without fail, my dad celebrated the Marine Corps birthday, but since he couldn’t celebrate, we celebrated for him.
But at this point, he was no longer really with us. He was speaking funny (we had suspected he had a stroke) and he couldn’t get off the couch to the point he couldn’t make it up the stairs anymore. That night I hugged him it was a light hug; it wasn’t a big bear hug that he normally would give me. At this point he had lost most of his strength and it was time for nurses to be called in because my mom and sister needed the extra help. From November 6th to November 11th (the day that my dad had passed) was truly hell on earth. However, it was truly fitting that my dad passed away on Veterans Day. He was a veteran of the military and of the FDNY. It was kind of a full circle moment.
Within those 6 ½ weeks we had many cries, many laughs, many arguments, and many trips down memory lane. Those last few weeks we were surrounded by family and my dad closest friends, Pete, Danny, Mike, Jimmy, and Bobby. They were all NYC Firefighters (most of them already retired) and it was really comforting to have them be there for my dad. My dad had known some of these guys for over 30 years and had a special friendship with each of them. If there was anything that I had learned from my dad it was that the fire department was a brotherhood, they always had each other’s backs.
The Ray Pfeifer Foundation sent night nurses that stayed with my dad during the last days of his life. They were nothing but sensitive, caring, and tentative towards my dad even when he couldn’t communicate with us anymore. They helped him have the most peaceful transition that I think anyone could have wanted. In my next post, I’ll discuss the week following after my dad’s passing.
This one is for the night nurses that were provided by the Ray Pfiefer and my dad’s best friends who were there for us…