Doctor visit - Ron

23 Jan 2007
Dear family and friends,
Dad (Ron) is been pretty good, considering. He is possibly coughing less than a month ago, although he’s still prone to breathlessness. He’s been attending Mon/Fri respiratory physio classes up at the hospital and at least he’s not pushing around an oxygen tank like some . . .

Today, Dad was accompanied by Joan, Chris and Beth for follow up visit to the oncologist. At this stage the specialist is only talking about chemotherapy, which would be offered to alleviate cancer symptoms. As Dad is reasonably well and active without symptoms (just his bad emphysema lungs), he agreed with the plan to continue as normal and see oncologist again in 6 weeks for review.

The chemotherapy Doc would use for Dad’s melanoma metastases is palliative (reducing the severity of the symptoms, slow the progress, rather than a cure) and would cause some miserable side effects, without certainty of significant improvement.

The PET scan done in December showed the multiple nodules in both lungs, and possibly something in lower right abdomen, but bones, organs, head, etc have not been affected. Origin of melanoma still a mystery.

Dad and Mum recently saw the skin specialist, who was also unable to define the primary (original) site of his melanoma. He indicated that it could have spread to the lungs some years ago and the tiny ‘seeds’ were inhibited from growth by the immune system.

Mum (Joan) had many spots freezeburned and one was biopsied. Results show a BCC skin cancer (least dangerous) and she is booked in next week to discuss surgery in hospital by a plastic surgeon (because it is near her nose/mouth, and she’s on warfarin).

Thank you for love and prayers,
Beth,
For Ron and Joan