My dad was diagnosed with Lung Cancer in February and has gone down hill really rapidly. I find it easy to talk about without getting upset and I often joke with friends- however when I’m alone or with family I find that I can’t joke about it anymore and I struggle to hold myself together with family, especially my mum. I struggle to cope and find it difficult to manage how I feel. I have made mistakes and work and often break down on the bus, I even fear leaving the house.
I don’t really understand anything about my dads cancer, what kind of lung cancer, why they can’t operate, what stage it is and why he is only having chemo. I find this doesn’t help with how I feel either. Also my dad is on so many drugs that he is not “compos Mintus” he often wakes up at night and sleepwalks and often doesn’t know who he is or what day it is and the Chemotherapy has brought its own set of horrendous side effects such as swollen feet which leak water, pressure sores and water blisters, the tumour is pressing on my dad shoulder and thus causing intense pain and now my dad can’t move. My dad spends his day’s watching DVDs or sleeping and I wonder if the treatment is worth all this suffering if the end is inevitable? I can’t stand to see my dad so unhappy, depressed, ill and in so much pain. I think that’s the worst bit, not that my dad is terminal (because I believe strongly that my dad is going somewhere better) but the suffering his going through. You see soaps and documentaries on telly but nothing prepares you for the reality of the whole thing.
I am angry but am not sure who with- certainly not my dad, I don’t blame him for being ill even though he was a heavy smoker, I don’t blame my mum as she was only doing her best. I blame the GP as he constantly kept telling my dad he had COPD and was a hypochondriac, if the doctors had referred him to the hospital sooner he would be in this condition.
