Kelowna

Unexpectedly we've had to take a trip to Kelowna. Troy's Dad was diagnosed with some kind of Lymphoma cancer back in November. It was a very slow growing strain of it, and it was found during a routine annual physical. He had no symptoms of the cancer. Since then, he's been fine up until about 2 months ago. First he got a cold he couldn't shake, and then he started to lose his energy. Finally they went to the hospital to see why he could not make it up the stairs without being completely exhausted. They found he had lymphatic fluid in his lungs.

They admitted him to the hospital, and began to drain the fluid. That is when Troy flew out to Kelowna about 2 weeks ago. During that week he was in the hospital he had many tests done, and also found out that he'd acquired another strain of cancer (so now he has 2 types of cancer in his body). The slow moving one is still there, but it was also branched out to a very fast moving cancer, which is now at stage 4. (Cancer is diagnosed from stage zero, which has no symptom's, to a maximum of 4 which is the worst of course...that's what Troy's Dad has now.

As soon as he was diagnosed with this fast moving cancer, they decided to start chemo the following day. This past Friday he started to have intense pain in his lower abdomen. He was sent in for a cat scan, when the found out that he'd gotten a hole in his intestine. He was immediately sent for an emergency surgery to repair the hole. While there on the operating table, they almost lost him, and during, they had to call in some extra doctors to help stabilize the situation.

Following surgery he was in critical condition, and so of course, Troy and I have come to Kelowna. Troy's brother Jason and his wife Shannon are also here. Darren & Nicky are ill, and since Dad's immune system ws destroyed by the chemo, he can have no one around him with any hint of illness, as doesn't have the immune system to fight it off.

Anyways, today hopefully is the day when we'll find out what the new course of action is, to fight off this fast moving cancer. As the chemo didn't work with Dad's body, who knows if it will continue to put holes in his intestine, so we don't know if they'll prescribe more chemo.

Anyways, please keep him (Doug) and Troy's Mom(Rena) in your thoughts and prayers. Please also keep us in your thoughts and prayers. It is awful to see a parent in such a state as he is in.

thanks all, I'll try to keep you posted.