Andrea and Fred have come and gone. It was a good visit, short because Fred suddenly felt bad. I think he was tired. I offered to let him lie down here but he wanted to go to his own bed.
They are in this area because Andrea is singing at a few area churches. It seemed odd to me that she would be traveling around, singing when Fred is so sick, but i had a chance to talk to Fred while they were here and better understand why.
Luke took Andrea on a house tour but Fred was too tired to go so i stayed and talked to him. I learned that Fred, who has always been an aggressive businessman and always supported Andrea’s singing, is too weak to go out and install or supervise the installation of sprinkler systems like he used to. He does still own his business after 2 thwarted efforts to sell and is still getting jobs and arranging for others to do the work, and getting a percentage of the price, but this does not keep him busy enough.
He has turned his efforts to promoting Andrea’s singing. He calls people he knows and tries to get her invited into churches as a guest singer. It is just for exposure. He says that the churches often take up a love offering which covers most of their travel expenses but that is all. He just thinks she sings so beautifully he wants to promote her, and it makes him happy to go along and hear her. Which is in increditably sweet.
I am not sure how much longer he will be able to travel. He is not in pain, exactly, but he is in discomfort and traveling is hard for him. He is weak and uncoordinated and tires easily. He has to have assistance walking, sitting down, getting up (alot of assistance getting up – Andrea is barely able to lift him from a chair. I am not sure how much longer she is going to be able to act as his sole caretaker.) And he is losing his sight. He has lost peripheral vision on his left and the rest is fuzzy when he is tired.
He is not a fast thinker, but is still thinks and reasons and remembers much better than i expected which is why, i suppose, he is still able to take care of business and set up singing engagements for Andrea. He is cross momentarily from time to time… frustrated… frustrated with his inability to do what he needs to do, frustrated with Andrea for her inability to understand what he wants when he cannot think of how to tell her, frustrated with her because she talks too fast or too much. (Andrea is patient with him… though i am sure she has her moments of frustration too.) But for the most part he is very good – appreciative of Andrea, upbeat, positive, grateful for everything.
We went out for lunch (they wanted to). It was while we were out that i experienced an overwhelming empathy for him. He ordered a baked potatoes with all the fixings. He was carefully forking up a bite and having trouble, but slowly, and without asking for help, managing. He was so intent. His hand was trembling and he was having a hard time with the cheese stringing down but he managed. Something about his having trouble with such a simple thing…. and the way he concentrated and persisted…. it just hit me how hard it must be. It is tragic when a strong vigorous person is struck down by cancer.
He told me that when they found the tumor they were able to take 90% of it. 2 weeks later they checked it and it was larger than it had been and there were new small ones.
A few weeks ago the VA released him, telling him that there was nothing more they could do. That frustrates him. He has had radiation and chemotherapy, but now they just monitor it. He says he is has already made it 2 months beyond when they thought.
They talked, at first, about seeking alternative treatment. I don’t know what happened to that.
Wonder if they have read Lance Armstrong’s “Its not about the bike”.
Don’t know if they’d even like it.
But a lot of it is on cancer and the treatments and all that. One of the parts that stays with me – though I can’t remember exactly how it was said – was in the introductory (I think) chapters. He said that one of the things about cancer is that you can have a sweet deserving person who dies, and a mean cantankerous person who lives, and you realize that it’s nothing to do with you and who you are, it’s just this disease and random chance.
He talks about how it’s so depressing and so liberating in turn. He talks about how you have to know you’re going to die and yet focus completely on living. I thought it was a good book. Of course, it’s talking about a topic I haven’t experienced, so I don’t know if it would be at all interesting to someone in the thick of it. But it was interesting for someone on the fringes.
I had wondered why she was bringing him – didn’t know if it was his idea or not. But it sounds like it wasn’t that she was bringing him, it was that he wanted to come. And that is sweet and good.
Dad told me that they had qualified for hospice – true? From talking with Beth, dealing with hospice was almost as exhausting as dealing with the disease .. but it does let you go take a shower without being afraid that they’ll need you in those 5 minutes.
Well, the miracle herbal cancer fighting formula I had tried was hoxsey. I can’t say if it does anything because my patient wouldn’t take it .. it really does taste awful if you try to eat it, but someone who can swallow a pill wouldn’t have that trouble.
I hope they both do ok with what they’re going through.
Actually, unless a book is written from a Christian perspective, it probably would not be read.
Fred and Andrea are upbeat about things… but so far as a cure, i don’t know if they are looking. They way they talked at first i expected them to check into some alternative cancer treatment facility, but they didn’t. I learned with Dad that sometimes it does not work out the way you think. We thought we would do this and that and the other when cancer threatened, but when it came down to doing it we decided not to, that all we would do is make dad’s last days harder.
I am not close enough to Andrea to just ask her about alternative medicine and their plans, at least not till i have been talking with her for a while and we develop a certain level of comfort with each other. I did tell her about some vitamin concoction that is supposed to be a cancer fighter… but frankly i am skeptical. There are too many products and procedures that bring wonder cures,but only for people you don’t know.
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One of the reasons they came in this direction is to stop in Austin on the way home. I knew that Fred has family in Austin. Today i learned a bit more about that family. It seems that Fred was married when he was younger and had children, 2 boys i think. At that time he was taking high paying jobs overseas, sending home lots of money but seldom coming home himself and never staying long.
Then he changed and wanted to be home and go to church and completely change the family dynamics. It didn’t work. His sons, or one son, wanted to have nothing to do with him. But When he learned that dad was dying he decided to let go the resentments. Apparently the mother encouraged their estrangement. Now he and his son are getting to know each other, even to driving up to visit for a day now and then.
And he said other things, like that they had learned that when you want to do something, do it and other things along that line.
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As to hospice, i don’t know. For most of the time they were here i talked to Fred and Luke talked to Andrea as they toured the house.
I can tell you that when we dealt with hospice with Dad it was all positive. They were easy to arrange and there when we needed them. The nurse assigned to dad was a large gentle man who was easy to talk to and lean on. Of course we did not need him that much. Dad had many caretakers.