Hi all,

My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer last summer. He had chemo in the autumn which sadly failed, and radiotherapy to try to shrink the tumours in February, which has also failed.

He is now extremely weak and confined to bed. He wants to stay at home and luckily this has been possible so far. He and his doctors/nurses feel that he likely only has weeks to live. Carers come in twice a day but he lives alone so otherwise does not have anyone around him.

My work have been very understanding so far and I have been off since the middle of last week as I just want to spend as much time with him as possible. I don’t live locally to him and was trying to get to him after work every day for a few hours, which was quickly driving me to exhaustion.

My thoughts are that I would like to continue to spend the time with him that we have left, but I also don’t want to use up all the goodwill with my work and cause frustrations there. I really love my job. Equally, I work in an area where I need to be emotionally regulated to support others, which I don’t think I’m capable of at the moment. I’m just wondering if it’s reasonable for me to continue to request time off for the next few weeks to be with him. I realise that after he goes, I also probably won’t be in a good state either and will need some time then as well.

I guess I’m looking for reassurance that it’s okay to prioritise him and my work won’t hate me.