happens in a blink

This post is about my grandfather who we call Pop-pop.  I will give the back story for those of you who have not heard and in case you need a refresher. :)  This is from my point of view and may not have all the facts correct and I am not a medical professional... I am a property manager.  And I will guarantee that there are typos and I do not care tonight, please forgive my grammar laziness.

Back in March my grandfather found a bump in his belly behind his belly button.  At first they just thought it was a cyst, but test results showed that it was a malignant tumor.  It even has a special name, "Sister Mary Joseph Nodule", here you can even read about it.  This is very rare and when it is present it means there is cancer somewhere else, typically in the torso.  The other spots are located in his lungs.   He started chemo on April 19th and everything looked like it was going great.   If you have ever met my grandparents, you know they are always optimistic and "that everything will be fine" and that "they are flexible".  With their attitudes I don't think any of us expected for anything to go otherwise than "fine". After the first treatment he had no side effects and things were looking good.  The next one, his white cells pluments.  They postponed the 3rd treatment until May 17th, and we continued to pray against any side effects.  But the side effects came on, nausea, head aches and lethargic. May 24th, the 4th treatment and side effects get worse.  May 25th he had to get a blood transfusion, to boost his red blood cells.  My parents were there during this time, to help because not only was my Pop-pop going through chemo and blood transfusion but my grandma had to have cateract surgery on one eye. My parents got home a couple days later and my Pop-pop's condition got worse.  He had no energy and the nausea developed into not being able to keep anything down.  Home health came in and started an IV to try and get him Hydrated.  I talked to my grandmother as she waited for them to come that Sunday night, Pop-pop was too weak to even say hi.  The next day the fluids seemed like they were helping.  He ate and was able to keep things down, until evening came.  At this point I had made the decision that i needed to go down the following week to be there for my grandmothers 2nd cateract surgery and Pop-pop's next chemo, so I booked my flight to leave the 5th. My grandmother ended up having to call 911 around 2 am tuesday morning.  His body was now swollen 2 times its normal size, still not able to keep anything down and weak.  His potassium is elevated and his sodium is low a very delicate balancing act.  The next couple days there is no progress, seems for digress then anything.  They had been using his port to give him meds and fluids but sometime during Thursday night the port was not intaking anything and things started looking very grim. The hospital called my grandmother around 4am and told her that she might want to get up to the hospital.  Without the port they would not be able to give him the medicine.  There were talks of subclavians and ventilators and panic began to swell.  Philip and I made plans to leave this afternoon and drive down, as well as my parents and other family members were looking at flights.  My uncle was able to get a flight that would get him there around 2pm.  He made a plan to talk to the doctors and find out what exactly was going on and what the plan would be.  I began to get peace knowing someone would be there with my grandmother soon and continued to pray. Around noon I got a call from my grandma that the port was working again and that the medicines were going in and that they were able to draw blood.  Around 3 the peace was getting stronger knowing that my uncle was there, but was still on stand by if news was not good.  Around 6 got news that the port was still working, they were starting lasiks which will hopefully get some of the swelling down.  Still have a lot of questions but feel like we are starting to get some answers now.
Grandma called me around 8 and she was headed back up to the hospital to stay with him for the night. She has not been staying with him, because he has told her to go home a rest.  When she asked him to night, he said yes that he wanted her to stay.  They will celebrate their 60th anniversary in February.    Please continue to pray, for my Pop-pop, my grandma, his doctors and for us.  We appreciate the prayers, the calls, texts, messages, your love and support.

This morning I woke up around the time my grandmother got the call, of course I did not know that until later today.  When i woke up I was, wide awake and my mind started going, so I started praying.  This song was in my head, and how true it is.  How quickly things can change. Rivive "blink"