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mousmeMy uncle's radiation therapy has apparently been moderately successful. That's my mother's brother, who lives in Connecticut and has been suffering from MS for the past forty-odd years. He was diagnosed with lung cancer last year and given about six months, but now they're saying maybe two years thanks to this latest treatment.
I don't know if this is a good thing. The man is seventy years old, and can barely lift his hands anymore. He can't hold a spoon to feed himself. Now, thanks to the radiation therapy, he's too weak to talk for more than a few sentences at a time, and it's affected his voice so that he can barely speak above a whisper.
They're still giving him cigarettes to smoke, too, which boggles the mind in many ways, but it's not my decision to make, I guess. His wife bought him a carton. Makes you wonder whose side she's on. :P
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My other uncle's surgery is scheduled for a few weeks from now. That's my father's younger brother (well, one of them: he's got three), who has some as-yet-to-be-properly-defined brain problem which is like an aneurysm but isn't quite an aneurysm. Apparently it's a hemorrhage forming a pool of blood on the brain, and said pool of blood can continue to expand unchecked and cause all sorts of problems. Then again, this is all second-hand information that I got from my father, who once again was in full-fledged denial mode and couldn't remember the name of the beast but affirmed that it was nothing he'd ever heard of.
He still hasn't told anyone in the family about the surgery, although when he appears with huge scars in his head a few explanations may well be in order. I guess we'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
I don't know if this is a good thing. The man is seventy years old, and can barely lift his hands anymore. He can't hold a spoon to feed himself. Now, thanks to the radiation therapy, he's too weak to talk for more than a few sentences at a time, and it's affected his voice so that he can barely speak above a whisper.
They're still giving him cigarettes to smoke, too, which boggles the mind in many ways, but it's not my decision to make, I guess. His wife bought him a carton. Makes you wonder whose side she's on. :P
My other uncle's surgery is scheduled for a few weeks from now. That's my father's younger brother (well, one of them: he's got three), who has some as-yet-to-be-properly-defined brain problem which is like an aneurysm but isn't quite an aneurysm. Apparently it's a hemorrhage forming a pool of blood on the brain, and said pool of blood can continue to expand unchecked and cause all sorts of problems. Then again, this is all second-hand information that I got from my father, who once again was in full-fledged denial mode and couldn't remember the name of the beast but affirmed that it was nothing he'd ever heard of.
He still hasn't told anyone in the family about the surgery, although when he appears with huge scars in his head a few explanations may well be in order. I guess we'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
