Helpless

LEL
LEL Member Posts: 1 *
edited November 2023 in Caregivers #1

I'm posting on behalf of my mother, but we are both at a loss as to what to do. In March my 71yr old father had his bladder and prostate removed due to bladder cancer. He recovered quickly from the surgery and adjusted to his new stoma. In July he started experiencing back pain, he went to a chiropractor, physical therapist, then orthopedic surgeon that performed a surgery in October for a pinched nerve and fused his L4 and L5 vertebra. We thought that was the cause of the pain and the recovery from surgery he would be back on his feet.

Cut to a month after the surgery and repeated follow ups and ER visits with out of control pain and they have finally found 1- a blood clot from his hip to his ankle that they immediately removed and 2 - that his bladder cancer metastasized and he now has a tumor in his left hip that is crushing his artery and veins and that is where the pain is actually coming from. So after 4 months of agony, we finally have answers and a game plan. He will be undergoing radiation to shrink the tumor and the doctors and nurses are desperately trying to figure out a pain management regime that we can continue at home. (i.e. currently only IV pain meds are working and that's not something we can continue ourselves)

Here is the crux of the matter, my mother and I are emotionally exhausted from trying to care for my father. My mom is retired but I am still trying to work full time and I am running around trying to make sure my own household doesn't burn down in my absence. He has been aggressive, combative, hostile, uncooperative, and sometimes straight up evil. I understand it is the pain talking but we don't know how to handle him anymore and I cannot find any local support groups for caregivers. He is in the hospital about to start his first radiation treatment and even though the doctor said he has years left, Dad is speaking non stop about his funeral arrangements and how he's made peace with dying and how everyone just needs to let him go and if we leave him alone he's going to try to jump out a window. The only pain meds that have worked for him make him extremely loopy and so he's either not in his right mind from pain or not in his right mind from the medication so how do we communicate with him at that point?

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