I lost my Dad on the 24th March. He was diagnosed with bowel cancer in October that had spread to his liver and stomach. I watched my poor father crying his heart out that he didn’t want to die and it breaks my heart thinking back to it. From October to January was mental torture for him, physically not a thing wrong with him on the outside but the terror of what was going through his mind. Chemo not working or slightly slowing down the cancer, watching the tears in his eyes with each piece of negative news given to him.  

From January to March increasing physical torture. Cancer spreads to his spine, watching my hero sobbing in a pub in front of his friends. Literally watching my Dad, wasting away infront of me, a man who loved simple things in life like long walks having to shuffle about the house, catching himself passing mirrors as his colour changed. 

Giving him his present on Christmas Day trying to keep himself composed terrified of what was going through his mind never mind our own. 

Having to listen to my Dad saying he was going out because he couldn’t sit and think about dying all day horrifies me and totally breaks my heart. 

Then the last few weeks of his life, his pain becoming unbearable. Awake nearly every hour under the sun writhing about in agony, having to be helped into scalding hot baths at 4,5 in the morning just to ease his pain because the literally roasting water must have numbed his senses. 

Watching his pain become so intense that he had to get a morphine drive put in. Nurses coming in while his body was just functioning saying, “there’s not a lot we can do once it’s in the bones” and this fills me with fear that my dad could hear this while lying there unable to do anything. The man I love couldn’t even muster the strength to go to the toilet. None of the medication even working to ease his pain. My poor dad reduced to a machine, almost three straight days of just sheer breathing at a rate of 40 odd breathes a minute. I can’t get those images out of my head. Watching my Dad draw his last breathe, after hours of chain-stock breathing I can’t get out of my head. Watching him just now lying there these images terrify me. 

I cannot get these thoughts out of my head. I don’t think I can even begin to comprehend the fact that my Dad isn’t here anymore and I definitely cannot deal with the level of suffering he had to endure. I take no comfort in the fact that he isn’t suffering anymore because he isn’t here. This is despite the strong faith my family and I have.

My Dad didn’t want to die, 57 isn’t fair. I cannot comprehend my Dad’s suffering and I think to myself that is nothing in comparison to the fact that he had to live it/endure it. I can’t cope with this.

Any support would be greatly appreciated.