Hi everybody,
Thank you for being patient. The family has gotten many phone calls and Facebook messages asking how our situation has progressed; we really appreciate the continued love and support! From now on, it is no longer possible for Chuck (Dad) to write his blog posts without aide. Therefore, I (Sam) will be finishing off his final posts. In the past couple weeks, we have gone through many changes. The most significant being a morphine pump connected through my Dad's chest port that will continually release a dose of pain medication. Every week, our hospice nurse has increased that dose in order to make Dad more comfortable. With that comes some challenges for Dad. As you can guess while reading his posts or knowing him personally, his pain tolerance is extremely high (a trait apparently I did not seem worthy to receive!) What makes this next step so challenging has nothing to do with pain, because it is managed, but rather his mental state. My Dad has always been a source of great knowledge for my family yet with the combination of cancer and medicine, his brain function is slowly deteriorating. Subjects that would be routine for him are now becoming more confusing. He knows what he wants to say but it does not come out the way he wants it to. This, for him, is heartbreaking. However, it is important for him to continue increasing his dose of morphine so his pain is controlled. I would rather have his mental state weakened than feel the potential excruciating pain of cancer.
Our family has been coming over more frequently as we do not know when "the day" will come. Luckily, we have always had a pretty tight knit family but for those of you who have not spoken to a family member in a while, be it a couple days, month, or year, find time. Without our family support, this situation would seem nearly impossible. I love my family because Dad taught us to. He knows we will be OK without him because we have each other. Talk about an amazing situation to leave us in! Thanks Dad!
- I love quotes, especially from children's movies because they are so powerful, yet when you see them when you were younger you never realize their actual magnitude. So I like to finish off posts with my inner child-
"Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten" - Lilo from
Lilo and Stitch
