Marcia, Steve and Gary -
You are all right, I do need to take a deep breath...and try to calm down. It is SO HARD to see your parents like this, he has always been the one in control and now he is loosing ground. I know that there is a killer lurking in his body, we can SEE IT, so it has to come out, but I am terrified...for me and for him. I really do think that my biggest fear is that he will feel abandoned if it ends up that he needs constant care and I can't take care of him at home. I work full time, I have a husband and 3 kids, one just 1 and 1/2, and we are constantly on the move. I feel like my Dad is just watching us run around right in front of him and he is just trying like hell to keep up with the pace of my house. I don't think it is fair, to him or us. I know he wants to be in his own house, but that is too far from here for me to be of any real help to him. Maybe we really need to consider selling his house and getting him a place close by me? I am also scared that even with the surgery, he may only have about a year to live. One of the nurses in palliative care, (that used to work as a head and neck RN,) told me that he would have 3-6 months without surgery and probably about 1 year with. I understand that the Dr. would not be doing something so radical if he did not feel that he would survive, if only for a little while since his surgery was dependant on his PET/CT coming back clean for metastasis, which it did, but the palliative nurse also said that head and neck surgeons also tend to paint a more rosy picture as far as life expectancy when surgery is involved. Who do we trust, whom do we believe???? My Dad does not necessarily want to know how long he has, but I need to know. I need to plan - he is total self-reliant right now and I need to take over most if not all of his daily responsibilities like cleaning, paying the bills, shopping, laundry, etc. Wow, what do I do.... I don't want to pull a dying man out of his home - if in fact he is dying - but I also don't want to leave him there alone to battle pain, fatigue and fear all by himself.
Thanks for listening, this is such a great place to vent and get great advice.

Jill