chapter 4

Looking at my dad, I did not see my dad, I seen my grandpa.  It seemed that over the course of that day my dad had aged 20 years.  I am not sure exactly what I expected my dad to say or do, because I did not know what to expect.  At first I was shocked to see how he looked, and then when my dad started to get agitated I got very upset.  He was cursing and swearing, and looked me in my eyes and told me to leave.  I was crushed.  There is no other way to explain it, I had waited all day to see him in recovery and the only thing he could say to me was “get out”.  After me, the boys and wives each went in to see him, along with Mike.  I could not go back in, my spirits were as low as they could be.  I wondered if they had done something while picking around in his brain that had changed him.  My mom quickly assured me that dad was very shocked and uncomfortable having woke up with a catheter in.  A feeling he had never experienced before, but a feeling he would soon get used to. Dad says he didn’t get told that he would have a catheter in and so he was very upset about this.  The nurses assured us that dad was on a cocktail of pain medication and may not be himself.  So, we left the hospital and headed home. 

I remember the drive up the next day, I was more afraid then ever to see my dad, after the reaction I got from him the night before.  Only this time when we walked into his room, his bed was empty and he was sitting up in a chair.  He looked nothing like himself, the left side of his head was very swollen and almost distorted and his head was shaved, he had a bandage over the site of the staples.  He had a Big smile on his face as we walked towards him, it was a world of difference from what I expected, although I was quite taken back by what I saw.  I couldn’t believe that less than 24 hours after having brain surgery he was up and out of bed.  His nurse said that he was being moved from recovery into a different room.  We loaded dad into a wheelchair as he wanted to go for a walk, so we decided to take him down to the lobby for coffee.  We headed down 13 floors to the lobby and when we got there dad very quickly began to notice the stares.  People stopped what they were doing to get a look, and that made dad uncomfortable.   I had never seen him with a shaved head, and the swelling was quite noticeable.  Before we even had coffee ordered he told us he wanted to go back to his room.  We are not sure if the elevator ride had been too much, or that he just was embarrassed about his appearance, even though he had yet to see himself.  So we took him back and got him settled into his new room.  I then took a trip up to the seizure clinic to buy him a bandana for his head (one which he would never wear).  I wanted to do whatever possible to make him feel comfortable.  I was so proud of him, he had just come through brain surgery and was far exceeding the progress I expected.  What a champ!

Only 1 day later we were told that dad could go home, I guess this is where my personal regret would have started, as I felt very strongly that my dad should not have been going home from the hospital this soon, and I should have asked more questions.  He was having cramping in his hands before being discharged and the nurses called in the surgeon who advised us that these were small seizures he was having.  Yet he was sent home anyways. 

He came home on a Friday and as that day went on the cramps in his hand became more frequent and I believe at one point we even called back to London to speak to a charge nurse and question why this was happening.  Again we were told this was small seizures that were happening as a result of the surgery.  I guess it was better than him having a major seizure, right?  His hand cramping up every now and then was a small price to pay after making it through a surgery like that, so we would deal with it, and they would go away after a few days, right? Wrong!

The next day was Saturday, and I will never forget the moment the phone call came in, it was in the late afternoon and Andy called me to tell me that dad had had a seizure.  Not just a hand cramp, a seizure.  My brother and his kids were all there when it happened.  My recollections of that day are somewhat scattered, for some reason one thing that stands out in my mind was my brother telling me that they called 911 after the first responders arrived he was told not to call me until the ambulance showed up and they got him looked after.  I was so incredibly mad about that, believe it or not I thought to myself that if my dad had died that night, I would never forgive them.  Who did they think they were deciding who should be called and who shouldn’t be.  At this point my fear had turned to anger (this would become a regular occurance over the next 5 months)

Walking into mom’s house there was so much going on, a kitchen full of firefighters and paramedics, my dad on a stretcher in the middle of this looking completely dazed and confused.  As they wheeled him out I remember trying to talk to him and he simply stared through me.  I remember walking out the front door after they took dad out and seeing so many people standing on the front lawns staring at us.  These were people who cared so much and you could see that on their faces as we drove down the street following the ambulance.  It kind of felt like time had stopped, like my dad having a seizure had stopped everyone’s lives that day on Queen street, there they stood in their driveways, and on their lawns all these people standing frozen with a mourning look on their face.  They had no idea what happened all they knew was that dad was sick, and recovering from brain surgery and now an ambulance was taking him away, I’m sure they were thinking the worst just as we were. 

His stay in the hospital was short lived as there was no permanent damage from the seizure, it was quite a normal occurrence after brain surgery, however one thing that did come out of all this was I came across the discharge paperwork that dad received when leaving University hospital.  While reading this paperwork of what to expect in the days to come after the surgery there was one thing that caught my eye.  One major side effect of brain surgery is seizures during recovery.  Then after reading a bit further down the page I noticed that this paperwork also said that dad would be released with anti-seizure medication to prevent a major seizure from happening.  I could not believe what I was reading! These world renowned surgeons who do this every day actually sent my dad home without a critical medication he would need to help in his recovery!  I am no doctor but I will be the first to say that this was a very significant mistake made on their part.  Needless to say he was put onto the anti-seizure drugs “too little too late” if you ask me, but none the less he was home again and hopefully on the road to recovery.

The call came in that dad was to start his radiation treatments on the brain on Wed Aug. 4 which would consist of daily trips to London for treatments to the brain, followed by 6 weeks of radiation on the lung.  It was very exciting to know that the treatments were finally starting.  I mean, the only way we could beat this was to go through the treatments.  Even though I had spent endless nights on the computer learning about information on what my dad had as well as, haulistic treatments, naturopaths, American cancer clinics.  I was preparing myself for the event that these standard treatments wouldn’t work and then we would try something else.  I even went so far as to have a chat with a wonderful nurse at the Cancer Treatment Centres of America, If I remember correctly she was located in Texas.  I spoke to her for almost an hour one night asking question after question about dad’s condition, and the things she was telling me were not so promising.  I gave her all the info that we had been given by the Oncologists, to my surprise I was not shocked at what she had to tell me, as I had already read most of it while studying on the internet.  I had to simply put what she was telling me to rest, my dad was going to beat this!  He was my dad, cancer could not beat him.