Hi everyone,
My nearly 90 dad has been recently diagnosed with advanced PCa which has metastasised in his spine. We (my siblings and I) only found out about the PCa late last year when he was admitted with chest pains and breathlessness and the Dr mentioned it. These past few months he's had several admissions to hospital and GP home visits as he's been in a lot of pain and unable to move very much; get out of bed, climb stairs etc. His last 2 week admission revealed the fact the PCa had spread to his spine and this was the cause of all his pain - we all assumed the back pain was his spinal stenosis (again only found that out in the last month). He had Radiotherapy and his pain meds have been increased but we're not seeing much of a difference :(
He's essentially confined to his downstairs bedroom and the living room which is up three stairs; we've had to have special hand rails put it and he uses a walking frame or stick to move about. A carer comes in every morning to help him get up and washed/dressed but very often he says he can't move; an ambulance is called and he's admitted, and then discharged the next day; this seems to keep on happening. He's slept in a chair in the living room before because he says he just can't move because of the pain.
He was discharged on Friday as the physiotherapists he was mobilising well. We got him home and he managed to walk the short distance from the car to the front door before stumbling saying his legs gave way. He had a rest in the living room before attempting to use the handrails to go down the 3 steps down to the bedroom. Just about coped with that before laying down in bed. We were all keen to see if going up was do-able so he tried that after a rest so we were confident things were improving.
Saturday morning the carer comes in and my mum, sister and 2 brothers try to get him out of bed but he says he can't move so he spent all day in bed, he has a commode but can't get up to use it or urinates in a pot (sorry if TMI) but also wears adult nappies.
We're really struggling to get our heads round it all but can't seem to make sense. The Dr we spoke to on Friday assured us his pain meds should help, he suffers from other medical conditions, high blood pressure and diabetes so is on a cocktail of pills. He has a patch for pain which is changed every few days, and has just started having liquid morphine too.
None of us children have spoken to his Oncologist and although our mum has been accompanying him to appts, English isn't her first language so I think she's having a hard time taking it all in. His next appt is at the end of July and hoping one of us - we all work, have partners and children and were totally oblivious to his condition before - can go along with him to find out more as at the moment we're a bit in the dark.
Today, Sunday carer has been in and he says he can't move. GP was called out and, I guess, gave him some top up pain relief. Not entirely sure as I wasn't there but we've got a family meeting scheduled later.
In himself, he seems quite depressed thinking 'this is it', although he can't tell us if the Oncologist had given him a prognosis. He seems to have given up and we just don't know what to do for the best. He didn't live a particularly active lifestyle before but was able to be pretty independent so now, having to have someone take care of your most basic need must be a bit soul destroying. We often wonder how much of his pain is in his head. In hospital he seems much better and moves about ok but as soon as we get him home he becomes immobile.
Would really appreciate your feedback on this, as someone suffering from advance PCa or a relative in a similar position.