Oh I am so sorry for what you have been through, and what your family have faced, so tough for you all.  I have lost both my mum (after a stroke followed by global cognitive impairment which meant she went from being her bright sarcastic bubbly self, to being almost unable to speak other than to swear or talk nonsense, unable to walk, toilet herself, anything very much except occasionally) She died five years back in February, I had to fight all the way through her illness to protect her, whilst also protecting my 100% disabled dad. He eventually went into care, but got taken ill in November 2017, on his 94th birhtday, things werent right.  He got very ill, lost his marbles, and ended up in hospital whilst I was in hospital having my foot rebuilt.  As only child and attorney I had everything on my shoulders, and eventually after his death in 2018, whilst still in a wheelchair unable to walk, I had his estate to sort out. The experience of his distress and confusion whilst not related to pain, was terribly distressing, but we cannot fix our broken loved ones, and that is part of the loveguilt we bear, because we love them and are unable to change what is happening to them.  I sought counselling via my GP, I had become burned out trying to manage the mum situation at a distance, whilst working and running my home up in the midlands, with a disabled falling dad still at home, and a demented mum in a nursing home over a 100 miles away and no support.  We put ourselves through hell for them because of a love we have, and a sense of duty, and unfortunately we are always on a lositng streak.  I was eventually offerred something called CBT online, I think its trade name was silverlight. It was a lot of Q&A, gave some irritating videos to watch which I fast forwarded, but some of the exercises and suggestions proved helpful. I realised afterwards that much of the stress was due to PTSD from the circumstances of mums initial useless treatment after her stroke, which resulted in formal complaints against her hospital.  ALso, the social worker assigned to Dad was  pretty gormless too, and as an ex professional in that line I knew she was out of order to try and send a 94 year old disabled ex RAF veteran to a bingo session on chairs he couldnt sit on, with no access to transport...hey ho. So all I can suggest is that if you feel you might want to share with a professional, online or face to face, sometimes counselling can be helpful its not a magic bullet, its not everyone's cup of tea, and the rumour is that many people are uncomfortable with discussing "feeling" stuff, but if you can maybe explore the idea, it may be useful for you. All I can add is that survivor guilt and feeling that  you "let loved ones down" is bitter and painful, but I can also tell you that nearly two and five years on, Im coming to an acceptance that I could not have done more. I hope you will find the same over time. be gentle on yourself, sent with love x

Hi,

I'm so sorry to read about the why your Dad died. Please don't feel guilty about it. By all means feel shocked, outraged, frustrated, helpless, angry, questioning and everything else but never guilty.

Poland19 mentions CBT - cognitive based therapy - which works for many people. Ask yourself why you feel guilty - do you really have anything to feel guilty about or was this something over which you had no control? Everyone asks themselves "why didn't I do more?" or "what did I do wrong?" The unbearable and harsh truth is that none of us have any control over these events and when someone is in the end stage of cancer and the process of dying has started the outcome is inevitable. If you were the most brilliant oncologist or surgeon in the World, nothing you could have done would have made the slightest bit of difference.

When my Mum died, I found that somehow being familar with the grieving process helped me understand why I was feeling the way I did and made me slightly better able to cope with it. I guess this was a form of self-administered CBT. Knowing that the way I felt was a very common experience and not at all unusual helped enormously. 

We all grieve is a similar but very uniquely individual way - there's no right or wrong way and we all just muddle our way through. There's a lot of information online about the Kubler Ross theory of grief, this article by CRUK might be a good place to start www.cancerresearchuk.org/.../coping-with-grief

Best wishes

Dave