5 weeks ago I lost my beloved dad to cancer. Ever since then, my life hasn’t been the same. To be honest, my life hasn’t been the same ever since my dad got diagnosed with cancer on January 3rd 2023. Life, for me, hasn’t always been easy; i’ve dealt with parents divorce, house-fire, house moving, depression, isolation, emotional abuse, over-eating, dealing with controlling and manipulative step parents etc. basically What i’m trying to say is that my life has always been a kind of rollercoaster, always having its ups and downs. However, at least i had the one person i could talk to, the one person i loved the most on this planet - My dad.
Ever since i was born and i opened my eyes for the first time, my dad was there. I’ve only ever known the version of my life with my dad, and now i am living a version where he is not in it anymore. It feels as if it’s the end of an era, as if my chapter with my wonderful dad has ended. Not only was he my dad, but my best friend, and it’s really hard to comprehend that my dad and my best friend are no longer here with me. 24th December 2023 - I remember i went to town to buy a few Christmas themed Harry Potter so i can dress up as santa for my little sisters (as i do every year). I was busy with wrapping presents to act as santa when i hear my mum in the other room crying aloud. That’s when i knew. If i'm being honest, as much as it pained, i knew my dad didn’t have long left. his condition was critical. What is worse is that since my dads brain tumour diagnosis, i’ve watched his health deteriorate. I moved in with my dad and step mum on January 3rd when his health wasn’t nearly as bad as it was when he passed, so it isn’t only the pain of losing my dad, it’s the pain of watching him suffer for a whole year and not being able to do anything that could help him or take away his pain. No one will never know the feeling of losing a parent to a brain tumour if you haven’t been there yourself, Watching your own dad rapidly deteriorate, losing the ability to walk and talk, losing his memory of not only all his children and family, but his memory of doing basically anything, such as eating, or scratching. I’m so traumatised when i think of how much he suffered with a brain tumour.
I don’t even know if i’m making sense or not, my brain feels mumbled and foggy and it’s like words are just falling out of me. I’m struggling with PTSD - before my dad passed away, anytime i would get a phone call, my heart would skip a beat and i’d feel like i am swallowing my own heart, my eyes would go blurry and my head would start spinning, because i would be expecting to hear the worst news. Even after his passing, i react this way to phone calls. When i hold up my pen, i get flashbacks of the nurses injecting my dad with something that would make him die calmly, when i go to the gym, i get flashbacks of when i would call my dad “The Rock” (my dad was a gym man, everyday twice a day he’d go to the gym and he was extremely bulky) or i’d remember when id phone him and ask him where he was and he’d tell me he was at the gym and it was leg day for him.
What’s also immensely painful is seeing my dad one day being big strong and bulky and then all of a sudden he’s lost so much weight you could see his bones through his skin. i feel like i can’t escape the trauma no matter what i do, certain locations give me horrible flashbacks, number 1 being the hospital; the nurses, the beeping machines, the curtains, the hospital beds, just everything. i feel frustrated even thinking about it all. I remember taking my dad to his radiotherapy and chemotherapy appointments, and after the appointments i’d buy him tomato soup with extra lemon, i’d get a wheelchair and put him in it and i’d forget to hit the brakes and we would almost crash, and we would laugh. i remember the good memories even when he was diagnosed, but then i think of the memories before he was ill, and it honestly kills me. it kills me knowing that i will ever be able to make new memories with him, ever again. it kills me knowing i can’t hug my dad for one last time. it kills me knowing i wasn’t there to hold his hand when he passed away. and most of all, it kills me that he’s no longer here and that the only place ill ever see him in is in my dreams and in my memories and through pictures.
When the doctors told me that his tumour was glioblastoma, a fast growing brain tumour which was incurable, i deep down had hope that he would recover and walk again, while also expecting the worse too. it’s all.. i don’t know what to say anymore. I have accepted the fact that i’ve lost my dad, because i believe it is gods plan and i trust his plan, it’s dealing with his passing and the trauma of losing my dad to glioblastoma that i find difficult with. My life will never be the same. I now have to live a life without the one person I’d confide in. I remember years ago talking to my dad about how scary cancer was, and he would tell me not to say the word, never did i think i’d lose someone to cancer, let alone my dad. i miss him so much it hurts so bad i can’t breathe, he was the person i was closest to, he was mum and dad in one, my best friend, my therapist, my comforter, my happiness and my everything. i don’t know if the tears will ever stop or if the pain will ever go away, i just know that my dad would be extremely proud of me for still being here, for staying strong, for him and for myself.
I don’t know why i am pouring out everything here, but it’s because i literally have no one to talk to, the one person id ever talk to was my dad but now he’s not here. i felt as if i had to let it all out otherwise i would lose my mind.
