A path determined

Pop met with his oncologist yesterday for a "plan of action" consult, and to see how things were developing. Due to the tumor invading the hepatic artery, the best course of action was determined to be immediate chemotherapy (and heavy rounds of it) along with radiation. For six weeks, Pop will be hooked up to chemotherapy 24 hours a day, along with another drug (that is hard to pronounce, so we'll call it "sis") that will help to make the radiation more effective. The "sis" drug is quite powerful, and will only be administered until Pop's body can no longer take it. This is interesting, because the doctor looked at Pop and said, "Now we'll hit you hard with this until you say that it becoming too painful." We're all sitting there thinking, "Obviously you don't know this guy, or you wouldn't be telling him that, because he's never going to be telling you that it's too painful." Nevertheless, Mom will more than likely be the one telling the doctor (discreetly of course) that the medication needs to be stopped. The radiation will be administered 5 days per week. As we sat in the doctor's office and received the course of action, you could hear a collective exhale. Mom and Pop are happy to be have a direction to move in, but we all realize the extreme regiment that he will be on. What energy is left in Pop now will be stripped from him. The heavy doses of both chemo and radiation are meant to knock the tumor back, but a nasty side effect is that it will knock Pop down too. They did not paint a pretty picture of the road ahead, but we took the news in stride. Pop only grinned, and stated, "Well, let's get to it then." With that, the ball was set in-motion, and appointments for his port (a large IV, for lack of a better term (and medical ignorance), that is inserted into the chest and runs into one of the major veins near the heart, and is used for administering chemotherapy) surgery, radiation consult, and feeding tube surgery were all set-up. If everything can be done quickly, they hope to start chemo and radiation within 2 weeks. Of course with this news, Pop came home (with his pump bag in-tow) and crawled under the lawn mowers to make sure that he could get things fixed on them while he can still walk-around.
Today he is experiencing more pain, but enjoying having some small projects to tinker on. The weather was gorgeous today (up to 80 degrees), so he took time to sit outside and drink-in the sun. He'd stare off into nowhere for an hour or so, processing all that is going on. Trying to imagine how to rig-up a contraption that will carry his chemotherapy alongside his road bike :) It will be a bumpy road ahead, but with the prayers and support it is one that is walkable. We pray that this round of chemo and radiation will help to shrink the tumor, and that Pop is able to stay healthy. Thanks for your comments in response to the posts; Pop always gets a big smile as Mom reads them to him.