My dad has been diagnosed with tonsil cancer. When I went with him to the big appointment where the Drs. lay out the treatment plan and they expressed their aim to to cure him. He's having 7 weeks of radio therapy and chemo. 3 weeks in he's stopped eating and had seriously reduced his fluid intake, to the point that he collapsed from dehydration yesterday and had to be hospitalised. I went through his medications and he doesn't seem to have been talking them either. My mum and I and others around him remind him he needs to eat and drink but he doesn't. He has a PEG tube but is really resistant using it. He has visibly lost a lot of weight.
This is all made more complicated by the fact that his memory seems to have become really bad, to the point my mum wonders whether he's in the early stages of dementia. It's impossible for us to decide if he choosing not to engagement with the treatment, or is he incapable of remembering.
I have no idea how to navigate this. No idea how to help help. How much to try and where to draw my boundaries.
I am full of really big feelings. Frustration at his lack of action and rejection of help. Fear that he's just given up. Deep sorrow that my concern can't motivate him.
