"My hip hurts" The Background

August of 2007. Myself, Matt, gets a call from my Dad: aka- John, aka- Lone Star, aka- Pops that he and Mom are coming to participate in the Huntsman World Senior Games in St George, Utah. "Good for him" I thought-because he did not cycle in them last year.
October of 2007. Call from Pops that they are coming out but not bringing his bike. His right hip has been really hurting him, even after chiropractor sessions, massage therapy and stretches. Parents show up and he can hardly walk. He is using crutches and is a mess so I schedule an appointment for him to see Dr. Anderson- an orthopedist. They actually both are limited. My Mom, Eileen, has MS and uses a walker to get around. He is her caregiver when she gets bad. He is diagnosed with an acute inflammation of his right hip. He starts anti inflammatories and heads back to Mizzou.
As Pops gets back to Mizzou he continues to have pain that is worsening. He goes back to his chiroprator and the chiroprator decided to order a bone scan since his treatments were not working. The chiropractor was worried he would do damage with further treatments. Pops had also seen a urologist and was not eager to go back and have a biopsy. He kept cancelling appointments. Of note, my parents have been very "alternative medicine" for a number of years and did not go in for checkups and such. Not fans of "modern medicine"-even though my Dad had been complaining for at least a year of having urge to go and voiding small amounts he kept putting off the urologist. Next, the chiro got back the results from his pelvic bone scan. He told my parents that there were "spots"- cancer on his left hip. The funny thing is he said to my parents "Do you want me to leave you alone?" and they didn't get it. The relative severity of this result had not sunk in. In fact, it took a few months before acceptance of the whole severity and destiny of this diagnosis was realized by both John and Eileen. Also of irony was that his right hip had been the one bothering him. Go figure.
Pops was officialy diagnosed with prostate cancer that had metatstasized to bone cancer in November of 2007. I remember being hunting in Texas and having my wife KerryAnn call me with the news. It took a minute to sink in but then I told my brother Paul who was there with me. We mulled it over- it seemed odd and I figured we would work something out with treatment options that would give him some years- being in the medical field I knew there were things we could do. That was my hope.
I got home and we got working on options. It was decided that he and my Mom would come out to St George for cancer treatment for two reasons. 1) They were not understanding the whole process of treatment and the oncologist, urologist and D.O. were not impressing us with their plan of care. They basically seemed like idiots- they were trying but they were giving crappy care to people that needed it really spelled out for them. 2) KA and I could take care of them and St George has an excellent cancer program. The program here is so big and advanced because of all the Downwinder folks around from the nuclear testing in the 50's in the close Nevada regions. Also, KA's Dad, Bill, had a 40 foot Prevost bus here that they could stay in for free. We flew them out here and KA picked them up from the airport in Vegas. He was a mess and had incontinence of bladder on the plane because he couldn't get up and walk to the bathroom. He was also in excruciating pain because of the jackass doctors in Missouri who wouldn't give him strong enough pain pills. I was at work and got a call from KA that she was taking him straight to the ER. The plan was to take him to the bus and get them settled in for appointments. I met her there and they got him back to the room- after consultation and a lower lumbar MRI they gave him a shot of morphine. He felt better but the deal was his L3 vertebrae was partially collapsed from bone cancer and his bladder was not empyting. The cancer made his vertebrae collapse as he tried to pick up his suitcase in Missouri. We got him to the RV and set them up. This was Saturday night. Sunday morning he was again in terrible pain- not from his back but because now he was not passing hardly any urine. He prostate was so big he couldn't void. I talked with a nurse friend of mine and she said she would go put a catheter in him. She couldn't go till that evening though. I had the supplies at my work and planned on taking them by for her- I was working that Sunday morning anyway. I had seen people cathed numerous times at the hospital and rehab and talked with another nurse on exactly how to do it. So long story short, I did it to get him out of his misery. I'll put it his way- I will never do it again, but i'm glad I did it. We drained 2,200 CC's from his bladder. The average void for a male as a large amount is arond 1,000. At this point, KA and I knew we needed help.
We got an appointment with Dr Te- an oncologist. He got Pops started and we set up a plan of a blanket radiation of the pelvis. He had 11 spots from left femur, pelvis area, lumbar spine and thoracic spine. Dr Hyde, the radiologist targeted the main areas of pain, which were left hip and lumbar spine. He went in for a series of treatments and started on Casodex to inhibit cancer cell growth. He also started on Lupron transfusions as a bone strengthener. Of note, my parents still did not understand why you couldn't just take the prostate out and fix the problem- my Mom especially had lots of denial. Dr Hyde was great. He worked with us throughout the treatments and kept explaining to them why we were treating things this way. The best part while seeing him was when he was testing pain in Pops bones. He would tap them with a closed fist in a gentle manner and then ask "Did that hurt?" which my Dad finally said back "If your gonna hit me at least hit me like a man."
I won't do all the details because I am a terrible two finger peck typer and getting tired of sitting here but at this point he has had a TURP (Trans Urethal Resection /Process) to open up his bladder. It worked pretty well. He has been set up with an internist ( Dr Jones) and is on a routine of Oxycontin, Lortab and Dexamethasone and has Diuladid in case of emergency. He comes to my work, Coral Desert Rehabilitation three days a week for pool therapy and my Mom rides the NuStep and UBE machines. He sees a lymphatic specialist (Lorriane)- an OT friend of ours- three times a week for lymphedema treatments and wrapping because his left leg is about twice the size of his right leg from circulatory/ lymphatic damage- most likely from the radiation. We bring them meals and also have support from friends. I will write about them later. Bottom line: He was given 8 to 12 months about two months ago and I have seen a serious deterioration in muscle mass and function that lets me know that the cancer is doing it's business. They actually went back to Missouri for a short period to live after his treatments but they found out they couldn't manage. We got a call in the middle of the night regarding how bad they were doing and I got them talked into coming back here to St George on a permanant basis.
Our big joke: He should die on a Tuesday. From Forrest Gump where Sally Field, his Mom dies: he says " She got the cancer, and died on a Tuesday." I say from time to time when he says he feels bad- "ya know "ya got the cancer" in my best Gump voice.