An impending death in the family?

Written by Gerard on Tuesday 5 May 2009

This could be quite a difficult post to write, because as I type this, my father is seriously ill in hospital. The outlook is not good for him.

All of this started almost three weeks ago. We had returned from a short trip to London and the very next morning got a phone call from a family member in my hometown. The shocking news: my father had been taken to hospital...in Lourdes. I raced across to France to help organise my parents' return home, and heard the French doctors' diagnosis that he appeared to have two have two tumors and two aneurysms.

We returned home on the 18 April and my father was taken straight to the local hospital, where he stayed for a few days. However, he was released because they couldn't do the required tests straight away. He went back to hospital to have a tissue sample of the suspected tumor in his lung last Friday.

But by Saturday night, another phone call - he'd been rushed to hospital after collapsing in the house. He was having breathing difficulties and dizziness. I went straight to the hospital, and met my worried-faced family. While we were there, he started taking serious chest pains and was hoarsely crying out in agony. Word came from the doctors that he had some kind of chest infection which was affecting his breathing. But, boy did he look bad at the height of those pains.

Dealing with family stuff

Right now, I'm burned out on family stuff. As hard as it is to watch my father deteriorating, I'm trying to keep my mother focused on practical things (she's not a clear thinker at the best of times), and not to become to maudlin, at least not right now.

The eldest of my two sisters is being insufferable though. I won't go into the details of my dislike of her, but that dislike is deep-rooted and long-lived. She acts like a petulant, moody teenager (she's 31) and sulks when all attention is not on her. Now, any normal person would respect the seriousness of the situation and put their own issues on the back burner. Not my sister. She's storming out over trivial nonsense on a daily basis, just for the attention.

Coupled to that, there's clearly a very negative mood in the family right now. Given our gene pool's predisposition to cancer, and the vague diagnoses that we've had to date, it looks like my father may be heavily riddled with cancer. We don't have confirmation of that, of course, but our collective Spidey-senses are tingling.

Anyway, there's much noise right now: relatives enquiring after him, my mother and sisters talking about wills and possible funeral arrangements, a bit of antagonism about certain aunts trying to take control of the situation. Blah blah blah. I'm able to cope with the practical stuff extremely well, but family politics are quickly wearing me down and tiring me out.

My brood

There's been a ton of disruption to my own family. I'm having to disappear back to my home town for a few days at a time. Lisa's coping admirably, but she was shocked when she finally made a visit to the hospital. We took the kids along and they were pretty shocked. In fact, I've never seen them so well behaved and silent in a public place.

And my reaction?

I'm doing remarkably well when I've got something to keep my mind engaged - like making arrangements and making sure my mother remembers to eat. I was extremely businesslike in France, and likewise when we got him into hospital back home.

Right now though, I'm tired. And more emotionally drained than I can remember being at any other time in my life. For the most part, I'm coping well, although I find myself becoming teary whenever I think about after he dies. Who's going to manage the wake? Who's going to say a few words at the funeral? Will it be me? What will I say? I don't know. I did have a brief break in my composure this evening. I couldn't stop myself, it all just became so overwhelming.

On an intellectual level, this is testing all my beliefs about death and illness to the limit. My core belief on this is that death is the end. Once you die, it's like turning off a television set for the last time. No picture, no sound. And I've read enough Buddhist literature to accept that death is inevitable and we must come to terms with that. And if I'm honest, my sadness is for the man who raised me going through such pain and rapid deterioration right now.

I think I can handle his death, when it happens. It's just really upsetting to watch his physical pain and my mother's mental distress - she's floundering without him and I think what's hitting her hard is how much she relies on him. Part of what I'm trying to do is to get her thinking about how she'll manage her routine if something happens.