Illness

Deathbed scenes and false alarms

Written by Gerard on Wednesday 24 June 2009

To say that the last few weeks have been stressful would be pushing the art of the euphemism to its absolute limits.

My father’s condition has deteriorated (he has cancer) since his second round of chemotherapy. Suddenly, I’ve been dealing with some overwhelming emotions - intense grief and a sadness that I’ve never felt before. As the prospect of him dying becomes ever more real, feelings and memories have been jumping out at me, helping to crystallize my father’s role in my life.

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.