Dad update 9-4-08

Well, Dad went to the doctor today and came home with some pretty good news overall. The tumors have shrunk slightly since his pre-treatment MRI. His platelet count is up to 346,000- huge improvement!! His red blood cell count is still very low, so he will have a blood transfusion on Monday. That should help him have more energy. The doctor also gave us a new timeline of 2-6 months without treatment and 1-2 years with treatment. At first Dad was unsure if he wanted to go through with more treatments, but I guess he has decided to try it. The treatment will be cycles of 5 chemo days (1 pill per day) then 23 days without chemo. The chemo will be stronger doses than when he was under radiation treatments. This plan is assuming his body is healthy enough and recovers fast enough from each round of chemo. My understanding is that the chemo will not really make things better, but it should prevent things from getting worse for a while.
I guess my emotions are pretty mixed right now. I'm so happy that the tumors are a little smaller and the platelet count is up. I'm not really sure about Dad's quality of life though. I'm not sure I would want to stay in his current condition for 1-2 years if I were him. I also don't know how all of this will affect my plans. I don't want to be away from Josh for up to 2 years- 2 months has been hard enough. I think we'll just have to wait and see how things go. Please pray for guidance in all of this. Oh how I wish I had God's wisdom in times like these!