I can cry. Another day has passed. A day that my father has to get through with excruciating pain in his lower back. A pain in his lower back that is -in all likelihood- due to the tumor he has in his lungs. Why is there no good cancer pain relief for this fucking disease?
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It is a tumor of which we have known for more than a year and which we all take 'for granted'. After all, Dad is 86 years old. A good age I hear you think. And we think so too. Until six weeks ago, he himself came to us by car. From Nuenen to Schijndel, for a nice lunch on Friday. Then he could see his grandchildren for a while and afterwards we took a walk with the dog. Fixed price.
Six weeks ago, however, there was a change in the pain in his lower back. He had been walking around with this pain for some time, but it went up and down. Now, however, he does not go away and the pain increases to such an extent that he walks around with pain rating 8 for days on end. And knowing my father… for others this would probably be a 9 or a 10, he is such a tough guy.
It is clear that the tumor in his lungs will not go away. We've grown accustomed to that feeling by now. He was diagnosed with lung cancer more than seven years ago. It was reduced in size with radiation and chemotherapy. Then came colon cancer, which he had surgery for. Surgery was successful but he broke a hip because he got out of the hospital bed and fell. Six months after the rehabilitation period, my mother died of colon cancer. And now, four years later, we are confronted with this nasty disease again.
Slowly you seem to grow together to a moment when the tumor takes over. With ups and downs, because in the time when daddy wasn't in so much pain, a week could just fly by without me worrying about how things were going. It all dragged on. We did our thing, the dog went to stay with him for a week during the holiday and everything went on.
That has changed in recent weeks. You wake up with it and go to bed with it. Him, but so are we. Not with the fact that he is so ill, but precisely with that terrible pain and the fact that the right pain relief is not found.
The general practitioner and the pain clinic from the hospital are all looking. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. Screw up morphine patches, a pill for nerve pain, a pill from the NSAID group added. Add six to fifteen morphine melting pills. It doesn't help at all. We are now six weeks further and he is still cramping from the pain in his lower back.
Three to four times a week I have contact with the pain clinic, his GP and home care. The fact that you can't do anything except bring the pain to the attention of the specialists every time is so sour. Fear that you won't get a call back before five and that another night will pass before you hear about any changes to the medication. All in the hope that it will work one day.
The last conversation showed that they now want to irradiate. Trying to lessen the pain with the radiation. So that any remaining painkillers can get the last edges of the pain under control.
Cancer pain is one of the most unpredictable pains, it turns out. And we see that in the pain that Dad is going through. The pain goes up and down, and within five minutes rises from a pain score of 0 or 4 to a number 8. And the pain relief for cancer seems to do almost nothing for him so far.
If the usual medication doesn't work, you have to do something, right? I already have the bottle here, waiting for the green light from the doctor to try it. That green light just seems to keep getting postponed. With a GP who is in favor and a pain specialist who has nothing to do with it, not all noses are in the same direction. What would you do? Just try it or wait a while with this alternative cancer pain relief?
Update :After much deliberation, I finally decided to use CBD oil. You can read how that went in the blog I wrote about it.
