Friday 13 December 2013

Not a good day ...

... and will be even worse tomorrow.  Today is the start of a bad memory.  Today is the 2nd anniversary of being told that Dad was being put onto end of life care and it would be hours, rather than days.  It was the day I knew was coming, if I'm honest, from the day he was taken back to hospital, having been discharged and sent home too soon, previously.  I'd asked the medics a week earlier if he was dying.  It seemed obvious to me that he was.  They didn't deny it but they said there was hope.  There was no hope.   He was given 9 blood transfusions in 11 days.  There was something seriously wrong.  He went downhill so quickly.  It was a peptic ulcer that burst.  He bled to death.  We spent the evening with him.  Did he know we were there?  I don't know, but I felt that he did.  I phoned my brother to tell him to get there.  'I'll call tomorrow after' ... can't remember after what.  I shut down.  I just told him that Dad might not be there tomorrow.  He wasn't!  My brother never did see him in hospital.  He told me that the man he knew as Dad had died years ago.  That man had gone for me as well.  I was his 'mum', his 'wife', anything but his daughter in those last years,  after Mum died.  He was still my Dad.  I didn't visit because it was my 'duty'.  I visited and cared because he was my Dad!  Not the Dad he once was, perhaps, but the Dad that he became.  2 years ago, early tomorrow morning, 14th December, he died.  6 weeks short of his 90th birthday and 4 weeks short of becoming a great-great grandad.  Memories of him and Mum are strong right now.  Not the good memories - the one's I'd rather not have and the ones I have to bear alone.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain, Pam. My father passed away a year and a half ago, at age 89 1/2. He spent his last 3 years in a nursing home, and the last few weeks in hospice care in that same facility. I went through the same thing, he was not the Dad I had known, but I loved him so, I visited as often as I could (he lived 500 miles from my home) and tried to show him the love and compassion he deserved. It's so sad to remember these anniversaries. This week I faced another milestone, selling my parent's home that was bought in 1954...very sad day in my life. Take care!

PeeJay said...

Thank you, whoever you are. I've had the family home loss as well. Although it wasn't owned by my parents it was my parents home from 1954/55 until Dad moved in 2009 to extra care sheltered housing (recorded in blog). I couldn't continue to run 2 homes and 3 bedrooms was far too many for his needs. I can empathise with that loss.

Carol said...

I am so sorry, absent from blogland for far too long. I'm sorry you have COAD, but know you are one of the patients who will absorb and take appropriate action on all the advise that is given. So sorry to hear your loss and my Dad died aged 56, so luckily I was still a daughter (although my parents had only divorced 2 years earlier). I can only send you a hug and say you and your family are in my thoughts xx