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paddirn@lemmy.world 3 months agoSorry for your loss. Unless you were going to work out a cure for cancer on your own, there was nothing you could’ve done, except just be there. My Dad died about four years ago now after he had a massive stroke, he was in hospice for about a week or two. And all I could do the whole time was just sit there and watch my Dad die in front of me. Him physically dying was a release more than anything, mentally though I think he had been gone awhile before that. He had had a previous stroke two years earlier and little by little parts of his personality started dying off. By the time his body died, the person I’d known my whole life had already been gone, he was just a shell. It was like watching him die in slow motion, little by little, day by day.
Hobbes@startrek.website 3 months ago
I seriously appreciate your response and your willingness to be vulnerable in sharing your own loss. I am sorry. I’m so deep in sadness that I am having a hard time processing anything.
Hobbes@startrek.website 3 months ago
I didn’t fight for him. I didn’t even try. When I called his oncology doctor and left a message, I heard back from a nurse and got no information. And further, the nurse said tzxhat the doctor doesn’t speak with family of patients and wouldn’t be calling me back. I should have taken my rage at that obviously fucked response and done something, whether it be forcing him to talk to me, or finding another oncologist. But I didn’t. I just receded into myself and did nothing. Every single day I drove to the hospital over and over again, I’d pull over and cry before I got there. But I was so paralyzed by my fear about what was happening that I didn’t turn it into action. I just asked for a nicer chair in the hospital room so I could hang out for hours on end with my dad as he died. He would have done everything in his power to help me, and for some reason I was such a scared little shit that I didn’t think to become the caretaker of my dad, who was always my caretaker. He needed me and I failed him.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 3 months ago
First of all, I’m very sorry for your loss.
Secondly, you knew he was receiving care from trained experts. And you showed up to be with him, which is a hell of a lot more than some people would be able to do.
In my experience, when it comes to the death of a loved one, there will always - always - be regrets of this nature. You’ll always be searching for the thing you could have done differently, or the thing you did “wrong.” It takes a long time to get to, “I think I can live with it.”
Or, to mix episodes, it is possible commit no mistakes and still lose.