Hi everyone,
I just wanted to get this written down really as I am struggling massively day to day.
My dad was diagnosed 6 years ago with renal cell carcinoma. Was told it was contained within the one kidney so had it removed, then told all was well. Had scans every so often as is standard. Picked up a small growth in his lung a short while afterwards but was told it was tiny and not growing, so was not a concern. Had regular scans over the next few years and with every one, he'd tell us there was little to no change and all was still well. At some point in mid-2019, they found a tumour on my dad's liver and pretty quickly decided to go down the chemotherapy route. After around 2 months of chemo, he was told that his lung tumours were shrinking but the ones in his liver weren't responding and were growing rapidly. They told him no more treatment was available and decided to stop treatment to "let nature take it's course" as he put it.
He seemed to get a new lease of life at this point, probably massively in part to the cocktail of drugs he was on, primarily morphine. Coming off the chemo too. He was miserable during that.
He was told about his metastasis on November 7 and died on December 19.
During all of this, from before the first operation on his kidney, my wife and I had been trying for a baby. It so happened we had to go down the IVF route. We had a few unsuccessful rounds before finally falling pregnant in May of 2019.
It was my dad I spoke to when the initial rounds of IVF failed. I don't really show my emotions very much like a typical male, but it was to him I'd go to to cry when I had to let it out. I'm not religious but he told me that he'd pray every single night before he went to bed for years that this would work for us. It was dad that was easily the most excited person in my family when we finally told them the news. He just hugged me and said, "see, told you."
My dad died just over a month ago and my first child, an absolute true labour of love, is due in around 3 weeks. I've just been through (still going through) the hardest time of my life and am about to go through the best. I'm having a really hard time trying to understand how to deal with that. I don't think I can.
To have my dad robbed from me just weeks before this is completely breaking me. He was so excited. He didn't let on about how it was affecting him as his nature was to protect his family, but I could tell he was crushed.
We managed to take him to one of those 3D scan places a few weeks before he died and got some very clear pictures. I also told him my child's name, which we have decided to keep private. He absolutely treasured that photo and wanted to tell everyone the name we chose because he was so proud. I told him he could, because I loved seeing him so happy when he was at his lowest. I love that I was able to give him that at least.
It's a struggle in the truest sense of the word. Whenever I get down about my dad, I feel guilty that I'm not focused on the baby. And vice versa. I am completely torn.
Thank you if you've read this far. I don't think I'm after advice because I know everything will be alright eventually. That's one of the last things he told me. But I'm just having a hard time seeing it. I know it's early days. Just being silly I suppose.
