Thank you everyone for your kind words, prayers and good wishes. My father has had melanoma (skin cancer) for years. It was at a very advanced stage by the time it was diagnosed. Dad was never one to go to the Doctors. A few weeks ago he began having problems with his vision and it took us two weeks to persuade him to get medical attention. To further complicate matters he has both a pacemaker and a difibulator which makes it impossible to have an MRI and the P.E.T. scan test that most cancer patients can endure is impossible for my father, he cannot lay flat on his back for an extended period of time. So his doctors were only able to find the brain tumor by giving him a cat scan. Which didn't give them as much information with regard to the spreading of his cancer as they would have liked, but did reveal the brain tumor. The surgery this past Friday lasted 8 hours, and the Neurosurgeon felt confident he'd gotten all of the tumor. My Father did remarkably well and lost no brain function, at least nothing that was apparent to us. We became optimistic. Today, however, the doctor came to say that tests results have revealed that the tumor was a secondary site, and that my Father's cancer has spread, to his brain, and I'm not even sure where else.
I come from a large, close family. I have six siblings, my mother, 12 nieces and nephews that all love my Father and want to do all that we can to help. He is still not sharing as much information with us as we would like. Stubborn till the end, and in charge. At times it pits us against each other, but in the end, we all want the same thing. To help and make sure that my Father is as comfortable as possible for as long as he has.