I have just endured one of the hardest years of my life. My step mom passed away in July of 2020 and it broke my Dad down to a shell. He loved that woman so much. I don’t blame him, she was good to him and they had interests alike so they were very compatible. Her children, all four of them, sort of disappeared on him after that though and it was up to me to take their place, I didn’t mind the time I got to spend with my daddy. Yes, at nearly 60, I still called him daddy, he was, I was his child. I loved him so much and would do anything for him that was humanly possible. But he lived 70 miles away from where I and my husband lived, so it was a challenge to be with him every day. We agreed on being with him every Friday though Sunday and he would be alone on Sunday night though Friday morning.
It worked for a while, but he started getting sick, he had a to go urinate in the early morning and it looked like pure blood, I was in my own town and so he called his neighbor up to his house for comfort while the ambulance got there and they took him on to the ER. They did a scan and found kidney cancer and a very large abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA or triple A) . He was afraid to move after this, he was afraid that “thing inside of him” was going to break. So I stayed with him. I had my husband bring me things to do to keep me busy, some watercolors, I used about 3 days. My tablet, but his internet was too weak and drawing paper and pencils, but none of it kept me seated long, I was anxious being there, away from home, I piddled around his house, tried to come up with things he could eat and would eat and did everything for him, he was living in fear.
Soon he got so thin and irritable that it was killing me, I’d been there for a little over 2 months with no relief. I needed to get away some, so I talked him into hiring a girl to come in and stay with him a few days so I could go home, she stayed 24 hours a day for a week and allowed me to get some good quality rest at home. Remember, I had my own illnesses to deal with during this time and I had to keep them invisible so he would not worry about me. He just didn’t need to worry about anyone other than himself at this point. The caretaker he hired was wonderful and she was good with him and for him. He argued with her as much as he argued with me, so I knew they were getting along. He kept her on for weeks and it was such a relief to me that I was able to go home every week to rest and come back on the weekends like we had started. But he was getting weaker and one night while we were there, we had to go to the ER again. He was hurting really bad and needed some attention. They found lung cancer that has metastasized from his kidney. It was a devastating blow because he already had a very bad case of COPD. He really began to decline.
I watched him shrivel away into nothing. He was always a thin man but he had become nothing but bones at this point. People were notified that he was on Hospice but they did not come to visit until I was gone. They did not want to be around me because I would not have put up with the crap they were doing. Thankfully, the caretaker didn’t put up with much of it and sent them home. But not before they made him so tired that he could not recover from it. That was the last day he could talk. I got back to him the next day and stayed with him for them on. I had the caretaker stay with me too. Soon we knew it was close to time, not that Hospice didn’t try to make him go quicker by overdosing him. I did not care for one nurse with hospice and I reported her as a nurse of death, she had no heart and did not care about the person dying, she wanted them to die, she wanted the family to give way too much medication and not allow the dying to live any sort of life they might have left. They sent out a much nicer nurse and she was disgusted to hear of the harsh nurse and told us this was not the first time she has been reported has being overbearing to her clients families. I would think that one time of being reported should have been enough. People like that do not belong in the industry.
The end grew nearer and nearer. I sat up with him, I held his hand, I talked to him and told him things would be ok, I would handle all they threw at me. I told him to go and rest, be at ease and peaceful. I prayed over him so many times. I waited and watched, I kept him turned and clean and did everything I could to make sure he was comfortable. The caretaker and myself, I can not take all of the credit, she was awesome and then my step niece came to out aide, she was also awesome, it was wonderful to have her with us, she is educated in the medical field so having her there was like having a nurse there all the time. It helped me so much. When time got very close, I called in my son and his wife, they came in from our town and stayed with us until he passed, which was only hours, in July of 2021, almost a whole year from his wife’s passing.
It was a hard year, but I would not trade a day of it that I got to spend with my Daddy. I was his little girl, even though I’m not little, I was his. No one can take that away from me, not even now. We were a pair to be reckoned with, we were so much alike, or so I hear from my husband. That makes me proud! I’ll forever hurt for him, but I’ll forever feel proud to have been his daughter. I know he’s resting and I know he’s not in pain any longer, that gives me peace. Something has to, or I might go crazy.
You have a good day, find your positive in all that goes on around you, it’s out there, you just have to look for it. Be as well as you can be, find the good in it, always!
Invisible Illnesses 