My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer

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photo is a banner my 2 and 4 year olds made for him.
I've spent more time with my father in the past two weeks than in any other two week
period since I was a child living at home. Over the years, we've talked work, family, and
politics, but this is only the second time I can remember that every conversation and
moment of silence we shared has been either about a single emotionally important event
(in this case, dad's illness) or discussed with an unspoken awareness that we're not
discussing that event.
The tenor is captured well by a conversation we had a week ago. My dad was lying in the
bed, covered with quite a few sheets. He was shuffling his feet a bit, then stopped, looked
over, and said "It's heavy." I leaned in and asked "what's heavy? The blankets?" His
response was "no, it's heavy, the stuff I'm thinking about." I asked if he wanted to discuss
it, and he said "not now".
His dry wit still shows. A few days later, he was having a tough night, and I said "I'm
sorry, dad. I know this isn't how you would have wanted to spend your evening." Without
pause, he said "evenings".
Last night my dad said I could update his blog going forward, so I'm putting up this post to
bring the blog up to date with what has gone on over the past two weeks. First off, a
technical note: I found the long URL for this blog made it nearly impossible to get people
to remember how to find my dad's blog. Rather than keep telling them to "search Google
for mcc and shuster", I created a new URL that redirects to it: http://mcc.shuster.com/
The blog continues to be hosted on the old URL, but http://mcc.shuster.com/ takes you
there.
Since I last updated the blog with the post "Dictated But Not Read", there have been a lot
of changes, but the bottom line is that my dad's immediate condition is improved and we
have no definitive data on what is going on with the cancer.
The initial issue with sepsis was probably caused by compromise to the immune system
as a complication from the chemo with Topotecan. My dad's last blog post before going
to the ER noted the various side effects of the Topotican, but noted that "With that parade
of complaints, I am still optimistic that this drug, the Topo will kill enough tumor to allow
me a remission, where I can have some snippets of normal life." Nothing in the time
between then and now has worsened the chances of that optimistic outcome.
While I don't have the blood counts from before he was hospitalized, I do have the counts
for the last several days:
2/26/12 2/27/12 2/28/12 2/29/12 3/01/12 3/02/12
WBC count 0.3 0.4 0.5 1.3 2.6 7.1
Platelet 12.0 105.0 76.0 38.0 31.0 27.0
RBC count 3.09 3.10 3.01 2.93 2.75 2.65
Hemoglobin 9.6 9.5 9.2 9.2 8.5 8.2
Neutrophil 0.10 0.10 0.30 1.10 2.30 6.70
Normal ranges:
My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer