My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer

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Dad is alive, alert, and describes himself as restless. They won't X-ray him until they
stabilize his heart. spO2 is ranging 88% to 92%. Pulse 120. Blood pressure scares me at
90/38.
He expects to be admitted overnight.
Sent from my iPhone **
My ex-wife wrote back "Thank G-d!" when learning my dad was alive and alert. Divorces
are tough on families and there is a temptation to demonize the ex. My dad never gave in
to that temptation, and was probably the most even-tempered of the lot of us during that
time. I've previously posted about the benefits of a happy blended family, and this was
one of them: My ex-wife stood by the ready to help, and when my dad died, she was able
not just to comfort our daughter, but to comfort her from a place of empathy.
Turns out I read the blood pressure wrong. There will be errors, and when reporting to
remote family members correcting the errors quickly is pretty important:
** Email: Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:50:49 -0700
Subject: Re: Update 11:43
Correction. I misread blood pressure. 113/47
Sent from my iPhone **
In retrospect, I'm not sure that I misread the blood pressure, since it kept swinging pretty
widely, but in the moment I wanted it to be 113/47 more than 90/38, so when I saw that
reading, I was pretty willing to assume an error rather than volatility.
I told the nurse that we wanted dad to speak with the doctor directly about his instructions
regarding "do not resuscitate" ("DNR") and similar issues. The nurse said she would get
the doctor.
By noon, I was starting to feel a real risk that dad wouldn't make it out of the hospital. On
the one hand, I was thinking they might send him to a regular room, but in my gut I was
worried he wouldn't even make it to the ICU. I didn't want my out of town family to be
caught by surprise (more than they already would be) by getting "he's at the hospital"
emails followed by a "he passed away" email. So I sent an email offering a pretty frank
assessment:
** Email: Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:03:49 -0700
Subject: Re: Update 1201
O2 saturation took a nosedive before recovering.
Dad is kind of out of it on and off.
I'm not an MD so my intuition means little scientifically, but I have a very bad feeling in my
gut about this one.
Sent from my iPhone **
The emails are, by now, getting harder and harder to send, but I'm getting to the point
where I am getting teary-eyed and I fear having a phone conversation would be a very
hard thing to do without becoming incoherent. So emails it was.
My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer