Limiting visitation, and how serious is this?

Kevin here.

Michael is in Intensive Care, as he has been since Sunday. This means visitors are restricted; in addition to 4 hours a day when they enforce Quiet Hour and kick everybody out who isn't a nurse or doctor, they want the fewest possible visitors at all times.

If you want to see Michael, call me or Mom or Jen first, and please be understanding if we say no.

How serious is this? Incredibly fucking serious.

His oncologist has no further treatment recommendations. This means no chemo, no radiation, because those things will do more harm than good at this point. He's in ICU because he needs a huge amount of oxygen - 15 liters/minute on the "oximizer" which is the one that looks like a snowy white mustache. For contrast, his home concentrator maxes out at 5 liters/minute. His first night, he was on the BIPAP, which is a forced air system. That's not something he can use at home, since they only do it here in the ICU. Until his oxygen needs go way down, and he can get up out of bed, he can't go home.

This is terminal cancer. That means his life expectancy is limited - less than 6 months. There's a big difference between median life expectancy and reality for an individual, though. Since he's allergic to the contrast dye and has kidney issues, the doctors aren't ordering scans that could assess the progress of the cancer. So we don't know how long we have.

I'm hoping like anything that we have a long time left, and that he gets to go home and enjoy his new back yard, and play music with his friends and have visitors. But the reality is that we don't know how long we have, so we have to make the most of the time we do have. He's in and out of consciousness, between the pain medications, anti-anxiety medications, low oxygen level and exhaustion, so texting or emailing him is the best option. He may not reply right away; please don't be offended. You can also comment here or on Facebook if you are connected there.

Thanks for all the well-wishes and prayers. They mean a lot.

 -Kevin