Hi, figured I’d share my story from start to finish just so I can offload as I have not done so at all since my dad passed away just short of a year ago.
I am now a 23 year old girl from Manchester, my close family consisted of my parents, my oldest sister, my brother and my sisters two children. I was by far closest to my dad and brother though. I always considered them my two best friends in the entire world.
my dad was a very hard worker, a quiet man who kept a lot of things to himself and did everything for my family. He took great care of us all and did long hours to ensure that we got things that we wanted. My dad was the first love of my life, we had that dad and daughter relationship that every girl deserves. He made me the secure girl I am today. I was a right daddy’s girl. I sat on his lap more often than the sofa up until about age 11, I followed him EVERYWHERE. He really was the bees knees in my little eyes. He was a tall, well built man and seemed indestructible to me. Even as a teenager and adult, my dad was hard as nails!
in February 2017, my world came crumbling down. I heard words that my 19 year old self just could not comprehend. I remember the events leading up to it like it was yesterday.
My life had already become strange months prior, around October 2016. I was in a long term relationship (of over 4 years, my childhood sweetheart who I began seeing at just 14). We had a very unstable relationship as we were young and inexperienced with anyone else... I began to realise that we had grown distant and he practically stopped speaking to me. I never did find out what was going on until just after my dad was diagnosed! I was lonely, sad and struggling to cope with this new life of never seeing my boyfriend and hating my job. That was when we were hit with a huge surprise on Christmas Eve of 2016 when social services came barging into my sisters home removing her two children (without sending them to family, straight into foster care) the stress of it was awful. My sister had a bad choice in men. We will say no more. My mum fought so hard and that Christmas was mostly ruined. The one nice thing was that we were able to all for the first time, treat my dad to lots of goodies. It was his first Christmas since being a child where he was spoiled.
This was when my nana, on my mums side became suspiciously sick. Our local hospital were useless and never diagnosed her in the months she wasn’t well. Little did I know, during this time my dad had made complaints to my mum about an odd symptom he was experiencing. The flow of his wee wasnt controllable. He could no longer make it any faster. They decided to wait and see if it would go. My nana passed away and my dad was issued 3 weeks of bereavement. I would call my dad every day from work on my break and chew his ear for an hour, it was the only part of my day I enjoyed at that point. I remember him complaining of how bored he was off work and how he actually wanted to go back. (Much to my disgust!)
Still, nothing became noticeably different to me. I would call my dad each day for break when suddenly, early February 2017, there were multiple occasions where he couldn’t talk for long because he’d be at the hospital with my mum- I had no reason to be suspicious as mum has been in and out of hospital since me and my brother were young with her chronic illness. I assumed he was just going with her, that’s what they explained. I just don’t think they wanted to worry us. I shouldve noticed it then really. The diagnosis process was surprisingly quick. I remember a day that he spent in bed which was unlike him, he had the sniffles and I jokningly called him dramatic- turned out he’d had a bad experience with his prostate biopsy that day and felt off after it.
It was a dull February morning, me and my brother were both off work and decided to go shopping in town. I remember the house just felt so depressing. I made a comment to my mum. ‘God it’s depressing in here today’ and she double-took me. She said ‘it is isn’t it?’ Almost as if she knew I sensed something off. Dad offered to take me and les into town as I wasn’t driving at the time. We got the bus back. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until on our way home, my brother told me that my dad was planning to take some time off work- on the sick. It was at that moment my suspicions were raised. Why would he need time off work? He just told me that he couldn’t actually wait to go back. Something was up at that point and I knew they were hiding something.
though it wasn’t for long. We came into the house excited to show our bits and bobs. Mum then told us we both needed to sit down as she had something to tell us about dad. Right there and then cancer crossed my mind. I was hoping that like per usual, I was being dramatic. Unfortunately I wasn’t. It was then explained by mum (as dad was in her arms) that they’d been visiting the hospital for him and that he had terminal prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 9. It had spread into the bladder, causing his symptoms and that we need to all fight as hard as we can to beat it.
I was just sat in utter shock. I couldn’t even think right. My brother gasped really loudly and jumped straight off the sofa to comfort dad as they both began to cry a little. I couldn’t even bring myself to cry properly as I was in so much shock. It’s one thing to hear the word ‘cancer’ but the word ‘terminal’? I could not imagine my life without my protector, the one who did everything to keep me safe and happy. What I (and I also believe my dad) could not get my head around, was that he was such a big strong man, how could he be made weak? How did something manage to break my dad? The one person who made sure nothing broke in my life... managed to break. That’s how I think we both saw it and it hurt.
I spent the entire day on the Xbox with my brother, we didn’t discuss it, we just sat on it all day and laughed. This was when small things became clear- how were we all going to deal with it? This is how we did deal with the illness most often. Pretend it wasn’t there. When we finally came off it late at night, I went into my room and cried like a baby.
I felt helpless and alone, my friends were great but I was still alone. I needed my closest person- my boyfriend. He didn’t seem too bothered (he had depression and struggled with depressive episodes that sent him into self pitty very often) but I didn’t care I just wanted him to help me. He turned around and told me he’d been seeing another girl and was now in a relationship with her and blocked me. Silly as it sounds, I was at a low and desperate and I needed him. I couldn’t cope alone and I told him that I just need his friendship. Which he accepted and began creeping back into my life until eventually leaving his short term girlfriend.
my way of coping with the illness was quite similar to the way my mum dealt with it, laugh it off. Make fun of it and almost make it seem like a silly little problem. But I think deep down, we were more afraid than anyone- including my dad. It brought out just how similar me and my mum were. The psychology behind it is quite strange, like if we treat it like something small then it must be something small? If we be tough on my dad then he won’t feel like a vulnerable cancer patient- he’ll continue being the man he was before. We said we were doing it for him, but we were certainly doing it for ourselves too. We didn’t want to believe it either deep down and we didn’t want to accept the truth. Dad was going to get sick and die. It was almost as if we accepted it and let our emotions out, we’d never ever be able to control them and stay composed again. I did have small cries here and there but they weren’t all too often at the start. And it didn’t change my life too much either. To my surprise it’s not actually all to life when someone is diagnosed, on the whole things were still pretty normal for the family.
his treatment options weren’t so limited really, we were told that removal of the prostate was not possible and it would be hormonal treatment followed by some radiation in a few months time.
he did begin complaining of slight back pain and mostly testicular aches. The hormone therapy left him with some uncomfortable symptoms such as hot flushes. They would happen quite a lot. Again, we would poke fun at him as that’s how me and my mum did things. I think sometimes he wanted to be babied and showered with affection, weather my mum did this in private or not I’m not sure. But I remember him accusing me of not caring one day on the phone because my brother was a lot more of an emotional person, whereas I used my humour to defend myself and my emotions. I felt like they needed protecting otherwise I’d have a mental breakdown. I tried so hard to contain myself throughout and just make sure my brother was ok.
when it came to the hormone therapy he started it around 2 months later, he struggled with needing to go to the toilet an awful lot and ended up refusing to go out. But knowing that wouldn’t last forever kept him going.
once the radiation had finished they told us that they would not be giving him a scan to see the progress (finished in July 2017) until the following year! We thought this was crazy. An aggressive form of cancer left unobserved for that long. But we’d never been through it before and thought it must be correct. At the time my now kind-of boyfriend (again) was planning to start university after a gap year, in London. His depression was very much affected by his education as he felt like a failure if he didn’t get a* or if he struggled to understand small things. I was worried about him starting as I didn’t have the energy to be caring for him whilst my family had so much going on. We were obviously also sorting out a legal team to fight for the guardianship of my nieces. But I couldn’t stop him from going, I knew I wouldn’t see him at all but our time apart before had massively restored the independence I had lost at such a young age- I didn’t see how unhealthy our relationship had been until we had so much time apart and tried to start things up again. He left for university in the august and he was quite excited.
his first week went quite well as it was mostly just getting to know people and going out partying. It didn’t take long though before it was back to the usual. His episodes were so severe that it was like talking to someone dead inside. And all he could do was repeat how hard his life was. And how stupid he was. It was so draining to listen to this stuff again as I had worries of my own and felt this was the time I needed to lean on someone.
around October time my dad began having little periods of not feeling well and I wasn’t too sure what was going on. I was hoping it was an effect of the radiotherapy since they said he wouldn’t need scanning for so long... maybe it’s just still active in him. I was wrong. The cancer was at work. He would feel very nauseous and not get out of bed until late afternoon. That wasn’t like him. He always got up in the morning and would get dressed straight away. I remember one day mum made him some sausages and he could not physically keep them in the room with him. He didn’t look good and I noticed he looked ever so slightly thinner than before.
he would perk up a bit again for a while, go back to work and be back to normal near enough. I remember our toilet broke, it stopped flushing early November and my dad came home from work one evening and he was himself. Looking at the toilet to see what was wrong. He didn’t have work the following morning so he wanted to watch a late formula one race in bed. (Unbeknownst to me at the time) as he was watching it, he thought he’d pulled a muscle in his back which quickly became excruciating for him. He struggled to sleep all night. When I woke up I noticed hed not got out of bed again, I had a bad feeling about things. He didn’t get up until half 4 in the evening. He popped his head in my room and told me I could go on his PlayStation now as he’s out of bed but he looked bad. He’d still opened his curtains and made his bed. I thought he was just a bit rough, hoping it would pass like last time.
that’s when I heard him vomiting in the toilet. That was something that I struggled with. I was an ex emetephobic (fear of vomit) and I’d struggled with that phobia since I could remember, I’d never ever lived to see my dad vomit for no reason. At that point, my heart started thumping. What on earth would cause this? He came in to see me and told me his back had been in agony and it made him vomit and now he felt much better. He seemed relieved but it only worried me. I thought I’ll pretend I need a drink in about half an hour and see how he is. As I went down he was curled up in a ball on the sofa writhing in pain. My heart sank. Something was seriously wrong. Nobody was home but me and I hated that responsibility. What if something happened? My mum called and I just wanted her to come home. He said his back hurt on one side and I instantly worried about his kidney. I thought I’d quickly google to see if prostate cancer can cause complications with the kidneys (my first google search) and that’s where my heart broke. He had advanced cancer? I never even knew it was considered advanced. I was terrified that it had spread already.
mum and my brother came home and we surrounded him on his bed as he carried on suffering with a bucket by him, randomly vomiting occasionally. My mum wanted to call an ambulance but my dad, far too proud- refused. He wanted to be driven. We managed to get him down the stairs as he slid down on his bum and mum drove him off. My brother never made it clear what was going through his head but he instantly started pacing around the back garden on the phone to someone, before I knew it he had gone out. I was home alone. I cried and cried and talked to myself trying to process things over and over until I got into bed. I heard the door go and I bounced out of bed and dad was there. Smiling. He was fixed! Only it was false hope. He’d eventually vomited in the toilet in a&e and it eased his pain and they decided to leave a&e. A stupid mistake as it only came back that night. I never blame my mum for this as I know how persistent my dad was with being away from hospitals at any cost. He caused us a lot of stress with avoiding medical care through his pride and discomfort at the hospital.
the following morning i awoke to the sound of retching. That relief from then night before suddenly disappeared. I was nervous again. We all got out of bed as dad was on the sofa in his dressing gown, rocking back and fourth in pain and occasionally vomiting still. Mum drove him to hospital for what would be his longest time in there- I didn’t see him for about 6 days. I was going out of my mind the first few days as the doctors were struggling to figure out what was wrong with him. Dosing him with morphine for days as they figured it out. Everytime I called mum he was either in agony or knocked out. I hated that mum wasn’t home taking care of the house. It made me miss and appreciate her. The house just felt so quiet and empty. Nobody was there to make it feel like home. My brother buried his head in the sand- just played on his game all day. I would try to maintain the house and keep it nice for mum and dad. One day I took a photo of me with the hoover and my thumbs up and he said it cheered him up. I was so glad it did. That’s what I felt my job was. To make him forget about the bad stuff.
After a long wait, scans etc they’d finally managed to diagnose the issue. His cancer had continued growing despite the radiation. It had spread to a lymph node resting on a tube between his kidney and bladder. This was causing his kidney to fill up with waste and toxins, causing him to become sick and in pain. Their plan was to give him a neufrostomy bag (unsure on spelling). This absolutely devastated him. I think this was the part that affected him the most during his journey. He was very down for a long time about this. When me and my brother visited him he looked so thin and gaunt. It made him look older. This is when I’d started to notice he just had a more ill look about him. Come to think of it, it never really went away after this. Even if it was slight. He never really looked that well.
he came home the day after and it was very quiet. He’d also been given the results of his bone scan, his cancer had spread to his bones too. Where we were hoping it wouldn’t go for some time. This was a big hit along with his bag. Now a physical reminder that he was ill.
Life was soon back to normal, he was continuing doing dad things etc but he ended up leaving work as he just wasn’t well enough to do it anymore. The next POA was chemotherapy. The one that sounds like doxataxel or something... he never hesitated to take any treatment, but I know it scared him. His priority was just being here.
very shortly after, again when I just needed a shoulder- my boyfriend attempted suicide for the first time. I remember calling him to see if he was ok and he sounded down and the next minute he was vomiting violently down the phone. I was worried and stayed on the phone to him all night as he proceeded to vomit and... you know. I decided at this point he should leave university and go back home and he agreed. It wasn’t worth it. He could just go back to his job and work his way up. He decided he wanted to go travelling and wanted me to go with him. I declined as I didn’t want to leave my dad. He left the following January. That’s when we decided to call off whatever we had, though he continued to text and call when he had WiFi to show me where he was. It was great for his mental health.
however, as my dad was adjusting to life with a bag attached to his leg, my mum and dad were having to attend court cases and visit their grandchildren in a contact centre. I felt so powerless, my parents weren’t just great people, they were brilliant parents! They had nothing to do with my sisters stupid decisions. It was so unfair. And social services and the foster carer began to make up lies about us as a family and it was infuriating. As if we didn’t have enough on our plate. I hated them for it. One day my dads bag began to leak in the court. He went to the car and called me very annoyed. I was annoyed for him.
chemotherapy started in the new year if I remember correctly- 2018. I was surprised at how well my dad coped with it, I always thought of vomiting and hospital trips with chemotherapy but he was more fatigued if anything. He did lose the little hair he had and his nails became infected. I remember him feeling quite unwell at times but him and mum got into a little routine with it and he never went without her. (Unless there was a court visit) - the children remained the most important thing to them, just an example of what kind of parents they were. He began to get fevers, quite often. We were told they were an emergency and he must go to a&e. However, my dad was the type of person who got a fever with a cold, we weren’t quite as worried as perhaps we should’ve been but we were worried; he conned me and mum by sucking cold air into the thermometer and drastically decreasing his temperature whenever the hospital was mentioned. One night we were very worried when he wasn’t making much sense. They told us to keep an eye out. I remember saying ‘god is that thermometer broke how has he gone from 38.5 to 36.4’ etc.
he was hoping to have 10 rounds of chemotherapy but after just 6, his body had enough and they advised against anymore. They booked him in for a scan to see what had been done. However, he did have an incident one morning which shocked us all. Just when we felt like dad was just dad again, he woke up and went for a wee when suddenly his blood pressure dropped... he collapsed and hit his head into my door. He was trying to call for my mum but was struggling. It was awful to hear- I pretended I slept through the entire thing but I didn’t. I heard everything. The fall, him retching, my mum in shock and the paramedics turning up and taking him away. That was his first ambulance. Turned out it was just a simple issue. He did do damage to his face though! He hit the corner of the door quite hard and his face was swollen. He put this down to having cannabis oil and stopped immediately.
Around the cancer and court cases, my life was pretty normal and I was doing well in myself considering: I’d got a new job and started seeing someone, I was still going out with my friends and enjoying life as best as I could. It was rare dad was noticeably in a bad way so life would continue as it would. The scans from the chemotherapy showed us some promise, the soft tissue cancer had begun to shrink, which was ace as that showed promise for his kidney but his bone cancer had continued to spread further. He was pleased overall and so were we. He pushed to get the bag removed and it was. Infact if I remember correctly, the bag for that kidney was never put back on. Though he was told that one day it would be. It was lovely to see a bit of positivity for him. I was so happy
After a year and a half of fighting the courts we finally won our girls back. It was brilliant news. But just coming off the backend of 6 rounds of poison, my dad wasn’t feeling so good. And he now had the task of putting together their bedroom. He tried his hardest, stripping his bedroom and making it their own. Some days hed do something for 30 seconds then sit down for a bit because he was that exhausted. I helped him as much as I could and we were the team we always were. From being a little girl I enjoyed sitting watching him do his diy whilst I sat and talked, as I got older I’d be able to help more. This time I was actually making a difference because he needed the help.
Life carried on and we had a nice ‘normal patch’ really. Though whenever dad wasn’t being treated with something it made us all nervous. I was spending a bit of time away from home though as my boyfriend didn’t live so close and that would make me emotional, especially as my dad would text me to tell me he missed me etc which I know was true as I really did talk him to death haha. It caused tension between me and my boyfriend and we too, we’re just not good for each other but I did make an effort as I liked him. It wasn’t as chaotic as my last relationship and I thought that meant it was good.
I remember dad started to complain in summer 2018 of a numb spot on his shin. The numb spot grew so rapidly over the course of a few weeks, before we knew it he couldn’t even put much weight on that leg without it making him buckle and fall. He tried home treatments but nothing worked. He ended up being scanned and there was a tumour compressing his spine, he was treated within days with radiotherapy and the results were amazing. It was like a miracle. He could put his full weight on it within weeks and it was back to normal.
We had a pretty good last part of that year once things were fixed and we were focused on getting the house together. He’d paid for a double extension, the back and side of the house. An extra room and a bedroom for him and my mum now the kids had took theirs. They spent so long sleeping on the floor in the front room because of how long it took to get the extension up and habitable. He still continued to take my brother to work most days and he always gave me and my friends a lift on our nights out. It was sad that I could no longer see him in the corner of the pub looking over me and my friends... but always offered to run us all around. We would get excited whenever the extension seemed to be coming along. We would take pictures together and talk about what we’d do with it all. Sadly he only lived to see half of it finished.
Right at the end of 2018 I managed to pass my driving test- 2nd time. I was over the moon. I began saving for a car and dad offered to put some towards it. We began looking for a corsa and there wasn’t much luck. In may 2019, dad got struck with a cough and I began with the same symptoms the day after. As a healthy young person, I can say that was a nasty cough that lingered for a long time. He told me he would take me to a German car shop, where he would buy his and see if they could source a corsa. We turned up full of colds and feeling crap but I was still excited. The man told us they couldn’t do that but they had some nice cars in. They spoke about the car I still have today. A grey Volkswagen Golf for £6k. I got so giddy and we signed for it then. We did feel unwell though. It put a dampener on my first few weeks driving it, because I spent the entire time with a car full of tissues. As I began to recover slowly though, dad didn’t. And as they were seeking out more treatment, the hospital denied him of any. Saying he was now too sick for chemotherapy or trial drugs. We were all so gutted. I was still certain it was our illness he was suffering from, he obviously had a worse immune system than me and mine took forever to shift so it would make sense. I was right and he recovered after a while. He was then offered the option and he decided to take more chemotherapy.
As the last third of that year came around I became friendly with a newer girl who joined at work, I was never to know how much I would need her in the coming year and how lost I’d have been without her. She is my best friend to this day. my relationship wasn’t looking so good and it just became a burden and after a few attempts at changing our differences, I decided to call things off and move on with my life. This was in December 2019. By this time my dad had pretty much finished his chemotherapy if I remember. I was quite down about my relationship not working out for a couple of months and just wanted distracting. I remember playing a game in my dads new room with him and when he went to leave me and sit with mum he said ‘you will always have your daddy, that’s all you need’ to this day thinking about that comment makes my throat tight. Such a pure man, the only man who I truly believed could love me that much that he had me no matter what.
2020 was the year that everything changed. 2020 was the worst year of my life and I never anticipated it would be as bad as it was. Christmas if 2019 was ace. We all went out and spent a stupid amount of money, were all back together again and nothing was missing. It was my dads final Christmas. It was almost as if his job was done. He’d got us all back together with enough money to stay afloat and it was his time to go.
January came and it started relatively normal. Though my dad did randomly vomit one day... we never knew why but it was going as normal. Whilst I was at work one day, a woman hit my car and I had to have a courtesy car for a week. Funnily, I got a corsa. I remember dad coming out and judging the hell out of it with me. It was slow, and the interior was all plastic and smelt funny. I loved the radio though. My golf came back a week later. Things changed that quickly that my dad couldn’t even come outside to see it.
Whilst my car was still in the garage I remember coming home from work one day and my dad was in the garden playing with his motorbike and he came in telling us he’d just been throwing up behind the shed and had no idea why. It would make him feel rough and he just sat down.
the last normal evening I remember, I was in his bedroom (I usually was as it was the biggest and nicest) and my mum asked me to do the dishes and I was trying to get out of it as I wanted to watch something on TV and dad told me he would do it. The day after I was back in his room and he came in in the afternoon and asked me if it was ok if he lay on the bed whilst I was in there. He then apologised if he ended up vomiting whilst I was in there. At this point we thought it’s his fatigue chemo stage again.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t. It was the start of the downfall and we had no idea yet. He started staying in bed more often than he was out of it and the small bits of Time that he’d get dressed and sit with us, he was always staring or out of it. You could tell he wasn’t well.
before we knew it he just stopped getting out of bed. In late February I got a call from mum at work saying that they were calling an ambulance for dad as he was being sick multiple times a day at this point regardless weather he ate or not and began getting back pain. He looked rough. He was in hospital for a few days where he realised he began with two numb legs. He told the doctor it would be his spine and he’ll need radiotherapy. He was right and they gave him some. It made a huge difference for a little while, they also gave him the dreaded steroids he took before. I never mentioned but they gave him steroids- this very laid back guy who suddenly became like a ticking time bomb who never stopped talking and retelling stories in ridiculous detail. I didn’t like the dynamic! I was the chatty one and now I couldn’t get a word in. It wasn’t his personality so me and mum couldn’t wait until he’d tell me to stop talking again. Which he did.
he came home on his steroids, very talkative and for a while he stopped being sick and his appetite went back to normal. He was here for my 21st birthday and was actually out of bed and feeling on the mend then. My mum never believed for a second he was well as she said he never looked it. His legs never quite recovered this time and they remained compressed until he passed away. He did try for a while to get the strength in them but he ended up with lymphodema or however that’s spelled. This then caused him to have an infection in his legs too so it became painful and he was stressed trying to remove the fluid from his legs by himself. He would lay with his legs up, try anything to change his condition.
he went on a bit of a spree before the legs became an issue, buying a new Audi S4 and loads of nice clothes, I think he felt it was a new lease of life after feeling literally like death. I remember one day we had an argument in the car and I shouted at him ‘I’ve had a shit year’ and he shouted back ‘you’ve had a bad year? What about me?’ And I said ‘you’re my dad and I thought you were gonna leave’ and he promised me he wasn’t going anywhere as we both hugged and cried together.
he then started to get a bad taste in his mouth, so eating became extremely difficult, he was disliking most things. One thing I had to buy all of the time from work was Battenberg cake. Vile stuff! And tinned fruit. But before long, he began vomiting again and this time it built up much quicker to multiple times everyday. This is when my mental health started to deteriorate, without my knowledge really. I began to drink a lot more, I would drink in the garden alone. Thinking that I was just doing it because it was warm out but it wasn’t. I was trying to escape reality for a while. One day I was in the garden drinking gin when my mum decided my dad needed to go to the hospital. At this point, COVID 19 had become a global pandemic and the country was in lockdown. This meant heartbreakingly. My dad had to go in hospital alone. I remember him being dragged into the hospital whilst he faced us in a wheel chair and he couldn’t even look at us. He put his hand up to wave at us and it broke my heart into a million pieces. I burst out crying right there and then for the first time in front of anyone else. I couldn’t hold it in.
he soon came out as they couldn’t do much for him but give him anti sickness and some special drinks to replace his food. It was so sad to see. At this point we knew.
id actually gone back to work at this point, the hours I worked were 1am - 10am. They’d changed due to the pandemic, online orders quadrupled in numbers so we had to work more. This was when I really began to struggle mentally. In a way I never expected. I was under the impression that grief was straight forward. Someone dies and you’re upset- rightfully so. I never expected it to mess with my head the way it did. I have always been very outgoing and I love being at the centre of a good laugh and joke. At work, this is what I was known for. I’d always actually enjoyed being at this specific job as I always had fun with my co-workers and I worked with my best friend. However, I began struggling to socialise. It was hard to pin point the issue. It was almost as if, I could not bring myself to laugh the same, but with my reputation as someone who was full of energy and laughter (even on my sad days previously), I felt an immense pressure to continue that way. The fact that I was struggling to laugh / smile caused me a great anxiety. Specifically, social anxiety. And I became afraid of talking at all through fear of freezing up when someone tried to make me laugh. I also noticed that I would freeze up when I was speaking too. Like I just felt an overwhelming sense of embarrassment over everything. This was where I made a grave mistake.
in the past, I had used ‘Dutch courage’ to help me through a few nerve wracking situations and it always proved to work wonders for me. For example, plane flights. I always hated flying until I was drunk. Drinking made me this more confident and relaxed version of myself and so I began drinking before and throughout my shifts. Gradually overtime increasing the amount. I counted on the alcohol to hide my social anxiety and it worked. I spent all day everyday self-assessing my performances. Did I sound weird? Did I embarrass myself at any point? Am I outgoing like I should be? Have I made anyone laugh today? Am I confident today? It was torture. The deeper into the habit I became, the more impossible it seemed to ever stop. I thought this was who I was going to be forever. I just wanted to leave work again. I soon did. I was very lucky to have my best friend by my side, someone who doesn’t really know how to deal with emotional people etc. Actually never judged me or made me feel stupid for feeling this unexplainable way and if I froze up she just kinda accepted I was struggling.
Dad was still... dad at this point. He was still communicating strongly and moving himself around in bed. He still sent to the toilet himself but he began having to you a walking stick and very soon after he was offered a zimmerframe. At first he kept putting off using that as to him it was a defeat and an acceptance of his weakness. I remember the day I came to terms with the fact that this was the end. And like with everything else, I’d just take my car for a drive into this empty carpark and sit there and cry. I’d brush off my tears and go home. Mum had mumbled in her sleep for my dad to hear one night ‘who’s going to hold me when this is over?’ I think this must have been terrible for him to hear as this was his number one fear, leaving us all behind. He decided we should get a dog- something he always told us he didn’t want to do again! Me and mum decided to get a french bulldog whom my dad named milo. He was absolutely gorgeous. Milo is the most charismatic dog I have ever seen in my life. Before milo, I disliked dogs honestly and he completely changed my view on them. Milo is mine and my mums baby and I don’t know if we’d have coped without him!
as a puppy, mum would get up with him when he needed to wee and eat and if I was off work and awake, I’d do it too. Because of covid, we struggled to get him his jabs so he wasn’t aloud out as young as most dogs. I would pick him up and walk him around outside in my arms for a while and let him take in the world. Milo looks at me and mum as his parents. My mum he looked at as his playmate who he can get away with murder with and with me, he’s much more chilled out, usually only sleeping on me or chewing a toy. He is such a loving boy.
sadly though, dad didn’t get much joy with him. Around mid - late may, my dad became weirdly emotional for him. All my life is known him to cry once when his step dad had died, which he cried for very complicated reasons. (His step father and him had a bad relationship, he would often bully my dad as a child and forced him to work from about 8 years old- he was a mummy’s boy. His mum passed away in 2000, leaving her money with her husband. When he died in 2005, he left my dad out of the will. This was what caused him to cry). Only now he cried quite a few times. As dad was in bed most of the time, I’d go in and see him when I could and we would chat. He got upset talking to his school best friend- funnily enough at the funeral my brother met his daughter and they are now together. My dad would’ve loved to see it! But the poking-fun-thing pretty much stopped. I remember he started crying when I was sat on the bed and I held him in my arms. It was such a strange feeling to have to reassure my dad, whos arms I was always crying into. I managed to hold it together.
he continued to lose a lot of weight and looked very poorly. I remember one night he told me to go buy myself a bottle of Prosecco and to have a drink with him. I did. We talked and talked and talked. I opened up to him about things I’d never spoken to anyone about before. He said we were more similar inside than he ever thought we were.
In late may an incident occurred which was a testament to my dads loving, selfless and caring nature. I came home from work after not eating all day and ate a sandwich. Occasionally when this happens, I can get a pain in my upper stomach that radiates to my shoulder, varying in pain. This particular day it was irritating me in the afternoon but it seemed to pass. I went to bed that night awoke about an hour into the evening in serious pain. My stomach and back was killing me and I couldn’t get comfortable. I did the only thing I thought could help me and went and sat with dad in a chair by his bed. He looked poorly. His eyes were constantly glazed and in a semi-stare. As if he looked tired but unable to sleep or something. He lay there and asked me lots of questions that got me thinking and talking. He was trying to take my mind off the pain. Within about two hours I realised it was pretty much gone. He fixed it. As always. He then asked how I was and as I told him, he asked if it was ok if he could vomit as he’d been holding onto it for ages for me. It broke my heart inside. I left him and went to bed. I’ll never forget small things like that.
not long at all after this, probably early June. He became very dosed up on his medication and slept almost constantly for a week. I remember thinking this was it. There was a horrible storm one evening and I thought he was going to slip away that night. A Macmillan nurse who was absolutely wonderful visited and said he’s on too much medication and the doses should be lowered and he’ll probably have more life in him. When this happened, he was never the same. It was like he lost his mind partially. He reminded me of an old man in need of care. He became extremely snappy and demanding. It was not in his nature at all. Mum had to remind me to never take it personal. Mum was his carer for almost the entire time. It was only towards the very end that she accepted help. Nurses did come occasionally to check him but mum did the bulk of the care. He began needing incontinence pads etc and his other kidney had started blocking and a bag was attached to that side. He changed so much. His dignity, something he protected so much, went out of the window. I’d walk in to him in his underwear and he didn’t bat an eye lid, or his pads. He cared about nothing now, he just wanted nothing but my mum and for her to look after him.
he would make short trips to the front room once a day on his zimmerframe, at this point he was very sick. He was still vomiting multiple times a day. He was drinking less and less of his food drinks. In July, my brother had ordered a bike to get to and from work and was unable to make the handlebars and wheel match up. My dad (just weeks before dying) managed to put it together, irritably though haha. He snapped at my brother who didn’t know how to take it.
I remember another incident that stuck in my mind. Bearing in mind he had not eaten at this point any solid food in about a month if not more. I came down the stairs with left over bolognese on my plate. To prove a point to himself, he took a plain pasta piece off my plate and attempted to eat it, his body physically wouldn’t allow him to swallow it as he chewed and spat it into a tissue. This was probably further confirmation for him that this really was it.
though we couldn’t tell how much this bothered him at this point as his cognitive function declined. I know he caught a glimpse of his deteriorating body in the mirror once and made a comment about how bad he looked. But no distress or anything followed. We don’t know what went through his mind though.
I continued my occasional trips to the quiet carpark to let off some steam. I was so very alone. My best friend did everything she could for me but somehow I felt so alone. I had nobody to take care of me anymore and I felt lost. I decided work was too stressful and went on the sick. I helped my as best I could, giving my brother lifts and doing some of the shopping whilst she looked after dad. He was getting too much for her to handle as he was getting weaker. He was struggling to turn himself over in bed.
one July afternoon, I was having a bath when I heard a distant thump followed by a moaning sound. I thought nothing of it until I heard my mum yelling ‘what have you done’ and I quickly panicked and banged on my brothers wall from the bathroom as I knew he’d have fell. His bones were so weak I was worried he seriously injured himself. Turns out he’s tried to go to the toilet and was too weak and fell. We had to wait for an ambulance to move him and it took them half an hour. It felt like forever. He began making comments that made no sense. He’d done it a few times. He asked my mum at one point what they were waiting for, he then confirmed himself ‘we are waiting for the picture’ my mum explained it was the ambulance and when she mentioned my brother who had just been in the room moments before, my dad talked about how he was at work.
once the paramedics got him back into bed, he never stood again. Just days after this a hospital bed was delivered and he was moved into that to make him more comfortable. It was so sad seeing him in that bed. He was wasting away. His eyes also became permanently widened those last few weeks. They looked so big. He looked like he was always staring really scarily.
i never realised it at the time but my grieving had already started and more so, I was traumatised watching my dad rot away. This didn’t become clear until he left us. But that’s the part that’s stuck with me and that my brain is still struggling to process.
the next week, things progressed very quickly. He had lots of diarrhoea and barely moved in his bed. Nurses came far more often than before as mum had to start letting them take care of him.
the last time we had proper communication was on the 30th july. I was passing his bedroom and you could see him in the doorway. I popped my head in and held up my hand to gesture a wave whilst saying ‘hi dad’ and he put his hand up and with a pause said ‘hey babe’
On the last day of July, I had plans to go for evening drinks with one of my friends. My wardrobe is in my parents room and I went in to get some of my things and I watched him as not only did his head not follow me across the room, his eyes didn’t either. They were just on the tv, even then, I don’t think they were focused on what was happening.
on the 1st august I didn’t see him at all. But mum had told me some things that upset me. The day I went out he had coughed up some black stuff. Both puzzled, they continued on but this day, he vomited into a bowl all of this black stuff. He said ‘what the hell’. Again, no emotional response though. We are so glad he wasn’t so aware because it would’ve been hard.
the 2nd august was a sunny day. I woke up with milo as I did whilst I was off, I fed him and watched Friday night dinner. Once mum was awake, I got ready and went on a drive and to Tesco. She called me when I got out of Tesco to tell me the nurses were in changing him. She said he barely closed his eyes the night before. That when she told him he needs some sleep he just responded with ‘yeah’. By the time she woke up his eyes were mostly closed. I can’t imagine how she must have slept that night. She said that the nurses had finished and she wanted to go and check on him as she always would.
it didn’t take long before she called back. She simply said, ‘call your brother and get him from work. Come straight into our room as quick as you can’ she didn’t need to tell me. I knew it was time and so did my brother. I picked him up and we didn’t say too much coming home. We were both afraid. We were his babies. I went into his room to see him. It shocked me. He looked like he was struggling to breathe. His eyes were open slightly but we couldn’t see his pupils. We were all crying and hugging him, telling him we loved him. My sister came in. He managed to say ‘you alright’ to her. Everything else was yes and no.
I made a joke that hed hate all of the fuss and my mum said no he loves all this attention, teasing as usual. She said ‘you love it don’t you?’ To which he simply said ‘no’. Good knows what he was thinking, if anything. We had some 90s music playing in the background. After around 20 minutes his breathing became unpredictable. My brother had gone outside on the phone pacing as he did. Eventually mum brought him back in and after a while he took his last breath. As soon as he took it, black liquid began pouring out of his mouth. It was awful to see. Mum put a towel by his mouth. Me and my brother had to leave. He went straight out with his friends as the rest of us sat in the living room talking.
