The Long Watch
In November of 2005 my Dad told me that he a tumor in his lungs and that it was malignant. The doctors said at the time his prognosis was about 5 years. It looks like they may have been a little too optimistic.
He's gone through chemo, and radiation. He's had his chest cancer disappear and reappear. He's had tumors in his brain, and had them disappear also. But the radiation that cured him of the cancer is whats going to end up killing him. Scar tissue is beginning to rapidly develop, even though his treatment was many months ago. I guess there is apparently Grey brain matter and white brain matter. White brain matter is basically not part of the functional brain. My Dad's brain is rapidly converting from Grey brain matter into white brain matter. His brain is basically dissolving, atrophying at a rapid rate. 1 month ago, he was up and around, and leading a more or less normal life of a retired man. He memory was for shit, but he was still reasonably sharp witted. The lights were still on when you looked into his eyes. Now they have begun to dim.
Two weeks ago he began to have trouble with his appetite. He gradually stopped eating and drinking. He became weak and bed-ridden and started losing weight rapidly. We do as much as we can to stuff food and water down his gullet but he just won't eat.
So this is the beginning of the end. He is in bed all the time now, and he doesn't make very much sense. We took him to his oncologist cancer doctor who had only seen him just two weeks before. The doctor was shocked and literally turned pale. Since I imagine he sees dying patients with cancer all the time Dad looked pretty bad. He told us that there was really not anything anymore that we can do but keep him comfortable. Sot that is what we are doing.
We are starting the long watch you make when someone you love is slipping out of this life. I remember this with David, my love. Its different with Dad I have to say. If only because David was 26 and my Dad is 68. David became infected with HIV the 2nd time he ever had sex. My Dad developed cancer after a lifetime of smoking like a chimney. My Dads older brother is 75 and looks 55, my Dad when he was 65 looked like he was 85. Great stuff smoking. People who smoke are idiots.
Unfortunately my Dad is one of those idiots. Yesterday he started having his first occasion of incontinence, meaning he shits in his pants now. I had to go out and buy a plastic sheet cover for his mattress, and a bunch of Depends. Today he is ready for another box of them. I got my Dad a wheelchair and a walker. I don't think he will use them much because he won't get out of bed. Not can't- Just won't. He doesn't have his sense of balance anymore and he has fallen several times trying to make to the bathroom. (and failing). He can't bathe himself, we have to do it for him. I love my Dad a lot, but I don't really feel so sorry for him. How can I feel sorry for him when he has had such a long good life and my David died when he was 26?