Two weeks ago my dad went into the ER for gastro pain and now he’s dying and my heart is broken
I don’t understand how this could happen. At the end of March, he started to experience low appetite, stomach pain and insomnia. His doctor told him that it was just signs of getting older. We went on a family vacation to Portugal in April and the pain continued, so he went to the ER the day we got back.
They found malignant tumours in his lungs, liver and spine. He was diagnosed with Stage 4B Bile Duct Cancer (cholangiocarcinoma) and its terminal.
It’s been two weeks since his diagnosis and he already looks like a shell of himself. His skin is yellow and paper thin, his face is gaunt and his ankles are swollen and covered in sores because his liver is failing. He can’t sleep because of the pain and he can’t eat because of the tumours.
Everyone is telling me to optimistic about the chemo and the radiation and immunotherapy, but it feels futile. He is dying and he knows it too. And I’m irrationally angry at every story I’m told about someone living years with terminal cancer because I just know that’s not the case for him.
I love my dad so much. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to lose him. I’m not ready for my kids to grow up without their grandfather. I’m not ready for my mom to be a widow at 62. Everything feels so fucking cruel and unfair.