Nearing the end
I have spent quite some time silently visiting this subreddit and so many of you have made me feel less alone. I really just need to vent. My dad is 77 years old. Diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 2019. At first he was doing chemotherapy. He would be down for a couple days but then right back to his normal self. He loved to cook and he loved being outside and working with his hands and working in the yard. He was always building something. Always working on the house. He would still be active in so many ways. He would always talk about so many different subjects, he is so smart and he would recite poems for me all the time. He would teach me new words every time I saw him. Then the chemo started affecting him. he was losing his hair. Becoming weak. Feeling sick all the time. As of two years ago he decided to stop all treatment. He said he’d rather enjoy what time he has left not being sick. He was doing good for a while. His hair came back. His energy came back. My mom would constantly say “hes doing better!” (My mom was still in denial at this point.) he did do better for a while. Until he started having problems walking. He became scared to drive. It was concerning to leave him by himself. Eventually we got him to go to the hospital (my dad is very anti doctor/hospital and thinks they just want to keep him sick). Turns out the cancer spread to his brain. They preformed surgery and got the tumor out. Then they started talking about chemo or radiation again. My dad gets agitated when they bring it up because he’s repeatedly declined treatment. He was in the hospital for about a month. While in there I spent every day with him. He told me a lot of things about his life, his memories and what I will have to do when he’s gone to help my mom (she’s 66). When we were in the hospital he told me he lived out his dream. He came to America when he was 18 and created the life and family he always dreamed of. He said he was ready to go and either way he was old and this is bound to happen. This was in March. Fast forward to today. My dad is in so much pain he can barely speak sometimes. He’s constantly agitated by pain and taking it out on my mom. She takes it personally but she is still there for him taking care of him every day. She had to go back to work full time after he was released from the hospital. If I’m working there’s some days he is alone all day. It terrifies me. We all know he’s close to the end. He barely eats anymore he takes about 1 or 2 bites. He told me he can’t sleep because the pain is so unbearable sometimes he sleeps on the cold basement floor because he claims it helps. But now that he’s home alone most days, I think he’s getting scared. He’s started denying he ever had cancer. He’s saying the hospital made him worse. I feel like I prolonged his suffering by convincing him to go to the hospital when he didn’t want to. He said he will never go to a dr or hospital ever again. It feels like my family is just hopelessly watching him die. I wish I could take away his pain. Yesterday he said he wanted to commit suicide. I feel like I’ve been grieving for years. I start therapy this week. I feel horrible saying I want this to be over but what I really mean is I don’t want my dad to suffer anymore.