The Undiscovered Country

This is not a plea for sympathy

In fact, I despise sympathy. Oh, I can give it well enough, but accepting it from others makes my skin crawl.

I discovered this only a few weeks ago, and it took me a while to figure out why.

But first, a little back-story to give it proper context.

The day after Christmas we receive a phone call from my dad. He was in the hospital because of spots on his lungs that turned out to be pulmonary embolisms: blood clots. They put him on blood thinners which they hoped would take care of them, but after a few more tests, they found a malignant tumor on his pancreas. Inoperable. He was given a year to live at most.

His biggest concern was not being able to continue to watch over his daughters and see his grandson grow up. My anger – and grief -- over the entire situation dealt with losing the one person I believed would live until his 90s, easy, and also my son growing up not knowing his grandfather.

I'm still a bit angry about that, but it is what it is. All any of us can do is live today, because none of us is guaranteed tomorrow.

Tom – my dad – expressed during that conversation that he would not ever again see his grandson. I told him we would go see him as often as we could. Since then we've gone to see him twice.

The first trip was rough, because he spent three of those five days in the hospital. He also lost quite a bit of weight and seemed to have aged ten years. To see such a vibrant man fade so quickly was almost unreal.

When he came home, he could barely walk on his own, was on oxygen full-time, and could barely stay awake.

Two days after we returned home, they discovered his liver wasn't functioning. They returned him to the hospital for surgery to remove what they thought was a tumor or nodule blocking blood flow into the liver.

It wasn't blocked. Turns out his liver wasn't functioning because it's riddled with tumors. They closed him up and as they were bringing him out of the anaesthesia, he suddenly couldn't breath. They put him under again, and removed a blood clot from his lungs. For safety, they put him in a coma for 24 hours.

Was he pissed when they brought him out and he had lost an entire day! Understandable. Here his days are already numbered, and the doctors took away one.

If they hadn't, or the clot was thrown when he was at home or driving down the street, he would have died.

When we returned from that trip, I called my mom to let her know what was going on. She asked me how I was doing with all this.

I responded with, "I'm fine." Which I was, honestly. I deal with big stuff like this in an odd way. I close off my emotions and deal with what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Besides, he's not dead yet. It makes me appear cold at times, and I can't help but wonder if I am that cold.

Truth is, it's a defense mechanism. I don't like to appear weak or overly-emotional to other people. Intellectually, I know it's not weakness to cry, especially over a loved one who's suffering from a terminal illness. But it's now an automatic reaction I've cultivated since my teenage years.

Hence my anger at my mom when she asked how I was doing. It's also not about me. I'm not the one who's dying. Save the sympathy for him. I'll deal with grief when we bury him – or in this case, spread his ashes.

Until then, I want him to live as best as he can with the time he has left.

We returned from a second trip last weekend, and I was shocked to see him arrive at our motel with my sister and her husband. He not only walked without a cane or walker, but he didn't need oxygen.

He's taking chemotherapy which will give him maybe an extra month, but from what the doctor's saying, it'll be quality time gained.

Seeing him like that showed me it's indeed working.

One of the biggest problems we're facing at the moment is convincing him he has to eat. One of the symptoms of his cancer is food tastes terrible. He describes it as licking the carpet.

The other symptom is depression. Talk about a two-fer. His attitude is key in increasing the quality of his days. But with the depression, he can't see all the positive strides he's made, and count his many blessings, however small they may be.

Which is why we'll be going back sometime in March. Seeing his children and his only grandchild I know is a huge boon to his attitude.

I will likely write about this more here. There are times I need to vent. This blog is perfect because there are no family members who know of it. But don't worry, it won't be all dark and dismal thoughts.

So no sympathy here, unless it's to pray for my dad. Save the sympathy until the day he dies.

I want to concentrate on living.