My situation is a bit unusual. I am 25 and my dad is 80. He is 80 years old but he had the body of a 65 man. He was still working and cycling everyday. We played tennis together 3 times a week.
In the end of august, he started complaining about some pain in his arm and back and he had a hard time sleeping because it hurt a lot. Not too long later he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. They did a second biopsy and found out he also had bone cancer and his liver was also affected. It was not curable but they said they could reduce the masses with chemo and radio.
I progressed really fast. When he first entered the palliative care room at the hospital, nurses thought he was working there. After one month, he started looking his real age, 80. His situation degraded so fast that they never started chemotherapy, because they say it would do more harm than good, his body was not strong enough to support it anymore.
In the end of october, not only had he lung and bone cancer, his spine collapsed, he could not walk anymore or change position by himself, a mass on a blood vessel paralysed his left arm, he had blood in his bladder so they used a machine to make him pee, his tongue and mouth hurt him a lot. He also started having very frequent panic attacks when he could not breath for 1min.
He was on strong pain killers and a ton of pills and injections. But mentally he was still 100% there. That's why it was so hard to let him go.
Last week he started asking the doctors for a way to accelerate the process. He could not stand the pain and staying in the room waiting for death. They talked to us about sedative medication. He asked to be medicated for sleep until the end.
Yesterday was my last day with him. He stayed calm until the last minute, even if I was crying a lot. He said he loved me and he was proud of his whole family. He said everybody will have to go through death. He said goodbye. And I left. Now he is sleeping at the hospital and I don't know if I will come visit him again. They wont be feeding him or hydrating him anymore. They give his body a couple of days, one week maximum.
I already miss him. It is so hard to accept to let him go. Especially when he is so conscious and we could have the same conversations we usually have. But I had to accept his decision. I still can't believe there is nothing we could do. Part of me was still hoping for a miracle.
I can't stand anyone telling me he was 80 so it's "normal". You could never have told he was 80 if you saw him 3 months ago.
I don't know how I will do without my dad.
I am just starting my career, I don't have a boyfriend or children. My family is my parents. My world is my parents. I feel like I lost my security. My big strong man who would rationalise all my problems. Make lame dad jokes that would still make me laugh so much.
Also I don't know if I should go see him when his body stops. I don't know if it's better to have this closure or if it's better to remember him for the last time I saw him yesterday evening.
I am lost without him.
