Jason Ferry Jason Ferry

On November 6th, Jason Ferry (My dad, as I will refer to him throughout his story and journaling), called me, saying he urgently needed to be taken to the hospital. Once at the hospital, he was rushed back immediately. Dad had lost a lot of blood, and the first priority was to make sure it wasnt too much. Luckily he didnt need a blood transfusion. The doctors then got him into a CT scan to look for the cause of the bleeding. As we sat there waiting our minds were of the idea, he had  a bleeding ulcer, or something of that sort. 


But when the doctor walked in, you could see on his face, it was much more serious. It felt like a gut punch. The doctor informed us that it appeared he has a large tumor on his colon, and two lesions on his liver, along with one lesion on his kidney. They were highly suspicious, it was cancer.
 
At that point Dad was brought up to the 5th floor where he would follow up with more procedures. With covid, I was the only person allowed with him throughout it all. During Dad's stay at the hospital they were able to confirm it is cancer in the colon or rectum. They still needed to biopsy the liver to confirm whether the lesions on the liver were also cancer, but dad was released from the hospital and we decided it was best to come home with me and my family.


 The following days we had a lot of family time, friend time and a lot of appointments/procedures. Although it felt like we waited a life time for more answers, we  learned on November 18th that the cancer had spread to the liver, making the cancer metastatic. Later that day we met with the surgeon to find out if they could operate. In his office we went over many opinions, scenarios and diagnosis. To sum up, they still dont know if they will be diagnosing  the cancer as stage 4 rectal (metastatic) cancer or stage 4 colon (metastatic) cancer. How they decide to diagnose the cancer will change how they treat it. To do this they need an MRI. They will be sending all of dads information to the UW where they will help in making final decisions and helping in treatments and/or treatment plans. He will also have a large team here in Wenatchee working closely with us. They decided his oncology appointment, scheduled for December 3rd, was too far away and scheduled him sooner on November 24th. As for now they feel the best approach is to start treatment first, see how the cancer reacts, hoping it shrinks the tumors making it easier to remove all the cancer. They are still unsure if the liver is operable.  


This is the beginning of dads story. We will learn more as time goes on, and I will be sure to journal it all and keeping everyone up to date. Dad is in great spirits, ready to fight this thing full force. he feels that he has a great team ready to fight it with him. He's been enjoying visiting with family and friends, and has been making a lot of jokes through it all. His grandboys are smothering him with love. The way boys do.    

Written by: Stephanie Waters (daughter)