Dis-belief

2 minute read time.

When my dad came home and had to tell me he had lung cancer, I thought my whole world had come to a stand still. My best friend was sick... 

He was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer, they couldnt operate, and they couldnt rid him off it.. But they offered chemotherapy to stop it from spreading else where.

He has his first round off chemo mid April... it hit him hard. He was very unwell and didnt want to eat - but he tried, for us.. for his family.

They gave him radiation therapy on his brain as they were worried it may spread there. The radiation played with his senses and everything began to taste salty, all he would eat was wheetabix and his build up shakes.

He had a doctor appointment in September, they told him the lung cancer hadnt spread, better yet it had even shrunk a little.

3 weeks later that changed. He found lumps near his collar bone. The cancer had begin to spread. His lung cancer had grown. My dad stopped trying to fight.

Mid-way through November he had become so weak from not eating we had no choice but to call the hospital, we planned for him to go in and have some fluids to perk him up a little. We didnt knw that on the Sunday he was admitted to hospital he wouldnt leave again.

 

They suspected he had a perferated bowel, no tests were done but they put him on constant morphine and also anit biotics. They told us he had 48 hours to live. But he pulled through. We were so happy and expected him to come home.. untill the doctor came in and said that this was it, 'the last dance'. The cancer was well advanced and he has 3 types alone in his lung. This was the first that we knew off this. 

For the first week in hospital he was much himself, chatty yet tired. Pain free from morphine.

The second week he began to sleep more, by day 12 he was difficult to rouse. Then he was like a new man! I recieved a text asking for chocolate, lime ade, ice cream  - you name it! The next day my dad was sleeping all day , but he was also having such vivid 'dreams' that he was talking constantly in his sleep - reliving his life! He was moving his hands and 'smoking' , he was on his laptop playing bingo, he was working on the fishing boats he used to work on as a teenager. This last 24 hours. His breathing became rattled, big inbreaths and small out. Then very shallow. He couldnt wake up. His eye brows would move when you asked a quiestion and i know he could hear us.

On the 28th I went to visit him... I held his hand, I told him it was okay to go now. He didnt need to be scared, and it was time. Within a few minutes he took his last breath. It was so peaceful, he was gone.

I was his little girl, he was my best friend. And now he is gone.

But he is at peace now. 

X

Anonymous
  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Oh how this broke my heart! My deepest condolences to you and your family......you are a very special girl who had a very special father.

    The love you had and still have for your father shines out from the way you have written this.....be proud in the way your father dealt with this horrible illness, and  how you have also.

    My father died of bowel cancer, in much the same way, though that was a few years ago now....

    my husband now has non small cell lung cancer, inoperable. I know how hard this journey has been for you and your family. In time, you will be able to smile again and remember all the good times in his life, all the fun you had together. There will always be times of tears, but they will lessen as time goes on. He would want you to carry on, be his "little girl" forever, showing everyone, through yourself, what a wonderful man he was. 

    A wonderful tribute to your dad..

    Take care

    Tina x