Topic: Hello-New to site
Hi. I am writing this with a heavy heart. My life completely changed for the worse less than a month ago, when my amazing dad was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma. It's all still so very new and I don't know much about it. The little I do know, I don't like. To give you a little more background I'll tell you how it all started. First of all my dad just turned 59 this past July. Around the end of July dad started losing his appetite & not feeling great. He also had some pain in his legs with some swelling. Dad had a stressful job and kept going and didn't make the time to go in to the doctor. He knew he had an appointment in late August and figured it was just stress. On August 15 dad had to go to the ER because his legs were so severely swollen. They discovered clots in both legs and lung. At that time they also found a spot on his liver & lung. The doctors said they had to handle the clots first & deal with the other later. After several days in the hospital on lovenox shots, dads swelling went down. They ordered a PET scan for the following week to check out the suspicious spots. After 2 days, dad was back in the ER with more clots. This time they scheduled a surgery to remove the clots in his legs and at the same time place a filter in to stop them from going to the lungs. A few days later he was released. Dad had the PET scan a few days later. Then the next day he was back in the hospital with major swelling. Oh, I forgot to mention, both times he was released from hospital they put him on Coumadin. He had MORE clots. They put him on Lovenox again. Waited for the Coumadin to get out so they could do a biopsy of his liver. This all took several days. He was in the hospital about a week. A couple of days after returning home his vascular surgeon called and said he had liver cancer that was treatable. We live a few hours from MD Anderson, so we got that process started to get him in. After a week or so he went there and was shocked to hear he did have cancer, but much worse than we thought. Stage IV liver cancer (cholangiocarcinoma) that had spread to lymph nodes, stomach, back, lungs, etc & that it wasn't treatable. We are still in disbelief. Since all this started dad has lost 50 pounds, is very weak & has no appetite. He is emotional, as we all are, very down. He has so much pain in his stomach and back. He is in his recliner 23 hrs a day. He took his first chemo last week & did great. He actually felt good for a few days afterwards & had a little appetite. He has his second treatment next week. This is so hard & I figured having this forum would help me through this nightmare.