I’ve been on this rollercoaster of my dad’s cancer investigation for five years, and through the ups and downs I feel almost numb to find he’s now on end of life care at my mine, with our dining room now a bedroom.
My father has always been such an intelligent and fit and active man so it’s just heartbreaking to watch his demise in front of my eyes. It started with lung cancer, which they think is attributed to him having being a chemistry teacher. It spread to the pleura last year and there are now also brain and spine mets. These have led to him being no longer able to walk, or control his bladder or bowels. It’s happened so suddenly in the last six weeks to month and the pace of deterioration is speeding up.
Whilst carers come four times a day, they are not here in the night or throughout the day and trying to balance looking after my dad and juggling working from home is so hard. I’ve handed in my notice as I’m 55 as don’t need the stress of a full on corporate job anymore, but I’ve three months notice and will finish end November. My dad probably won’t be around then. Yet after losing my mom at 63, I’m going to travel with my husband and grown up kids to do things in my mom and dad’s honour.
The hardest part for me is the complete lack of control over anything. I cancel everything and aren’t seeing friends as I don’t want to even pick up a cold. I don’t want to leave my dad.
The second hardest thing is he doesn’t want to talk about his situation or prognosis. He’s a very proud man and is stiff upper lip which is really hard as we could be talking about things that really matter. I’ve one sibling and my brother lives a few hours away. When he pops in he doesn’t talk about the situation either and I feel it’s all on my shoulders. Thankfully my husband and grown up kids are great. Yet this still feels very isolating.
Seeing the decline feels so cruel as without quality of life it feels kinder to not have this do drawn out. My father is so thin, weak and it’s like caring for a newborn, albeit my dad is still immensely switched on.
I’m not sure what to expect next, how to best navigate this and how to make this awful situation the best this can be. I just want my dad to have a dignified and pain free release.
