I'm not really sure where to start. For I guess over two years, my grandfather has had cancer (it's located below his jaw on his throat). It's gone away and come back a few times. He did chemo a few times. He's had surgery. The last round of surgery wasn't all that great. They did a skin graft which didn't exactly work. Tuesday, he went to the doctor to see about another round of chemo. The doctors decided that there is no more treatment for my grandfather. They gave him six months to live.

Hospice people came to see him Tuesday night and again on Wednesday. They explained that he can not be left alone anymore. They even said not to leave my grandmother alone with him. So the family is going to start taking turns staying with them.

My grandfather, as if cancer wasn't enough, suffers from alzheimer's. Up to now, it hasn't been that big of a deal. Well, Wednesday, he became confused. That passed by evening. I'm not sure that had anything to do with alzheimer's but some say it does. He's on some pretty strong pain medication. He can no longer swallow the medication so they've switched to liquid pain medication. I think that may have had something to do with it.

Six months. While I know that there's really no telling when anybody is going to die, and that it's quiet possible that my grandfather live another ten years, I can't help but to think that he's not going to last six months. I had my doubts about him making it out of the hospital this last time. But everybody kept saying it's okay, he's fine, he'll come home soon. I don't think he's going to die over night, but his death is coming and probably sooner than most.

I'm not even going to try to misspell the type of cancer he has. I have it written down around here, but I can't seem to find it. Doesn't matter much. Cancer is cancer. As to it's cause, I don't ever remember him smoking, but he did dip tobacco up until a few years ago. I'm sure if I said that had anything to do with it I stand the chance of being sued. Dipping tobacco is weird. You keep this stuff in your mouth and then you have to spit this brown liquid out. They call it Dipping Snuff. Hmmm, what other definitions does the word "Snuff" have? I've only known two people who dipped snuff, my grandfather and my uncle Mark. Mark quit a long time ago. When I was a kid, I once went over to my grandparent's and found my uncle's tobacco. I wasn't a 100% sure what it was. I took it and stuffed it up a mounted deer's nose that was in the store room (I wonder what happened to that deer; I haven't seen it since.).

The game plan is to make my grandfather as comfortable as possible. Over time, he'll slowly weaken to the point of not being able to get out of bed. Then he'll die. But he's not there yet. And Wednesday, a lot of my family panicked. I guess hearing the doctors say there's nothing more to do did that. The doctors took him off a lot of medication. I personally think some of the medicine was making him sick. The hospice people even explain how he didn't have to take vitamins anymore. That's got to be pretty depressing to hear you don't have to take vitamins anymore. I hope they didn't say that in front of him.

Well... there you have it. I've been meaning to write this for a while. I just didn't feel like doing it. I decided to go ahead and do it instead of waiting to feel like doing it.  ¶ 1:47 AM