All of you think you know what I've been through, you compare losing a potato chip to a family member, let me put my experience in detail so you can fully grasp how i feel before you say anything. Let me tell you what it's like in the last 4 months of losing your father to lung cancer. Maybe some of you idiots will at least stop smoking.
Everyday you come home, you wonder if your dad is still breathing. When you walk into his room, he's just asleep, with an oxygen tank over his face. You long for the few moments you can catch him awake, because he's so high on morphine that he only comes out of his chomatosis once every 10 days. Even when he is awake, he's either hallucinating, he forgets who you are, he forgets where or why he is the way he is, or he's crying in pain or realization that he's dying.
You're up untill 2 in the morning every night, holding his hand as he weeps and tells you he isn't ready to die. You try to tell him you'll be ok, that everything will be fine, because we're at the point where we just want it all to stop, we can't stand to see him suffer. but it continues....
You wake up during the 4 hours of sleep to hear him moaning in pain, you hear a scream, and then fast paced breathing. You're used to it by now, but that doesn't matter, you check on him.
The sleeping continues longer, so do the crying fits. Every evening you go to your room alone and hold your head in your hands praying to God to take all the pain from him, then you feel bad cause your praying that your own father will die, but it isn't like that.
Your family is put on shifts to watch over him, because your mom hasn't slept in 3 days. When your with him, he'll gasp to signify something, because he's now lost the ability to talk. You cant have a heart felt conversation of how much you'll miss him, or how much he'll miss you. You can just sit there, and do whatever you can to try and figure out what he needs.
A few more days go by, so far he's lost the ability to walk, talk, and now see. When you walk in the room, he seems kind of scared because he doesn't know if death is a physical being of sorts who actually comes to relinquish you from your pain and take your soul to your destination. You tell him its you, and he tries to say hi, then he just shrinks back into his "at home hospital bed" to await the next dose of morphine.
Some days he'll be able to talk, and some of those days he loses his self control. He seems like he hates everyone, and is just mad at you for being there. But he just doesn't know better, he's lost control of his emotions, and he'll yell, and threaten, but all you can do is say, "i'm here, do you need anything?" then you get to go back to sitting and sulking.
He's in a choma again, he hasn't woken up for about a week. The hole family is down awaiting the inevitable. Then finally, one day it happens. You stay up until the nurse declares your father dead, and your happy that he isn't suffering, and you're relieved that your mother can rest.
The next day you call your significant other to tell her the news. You visit her, you cry on her shoulder. She's been with you throughout the hole thing, and your just glad this wasn't the other way around, because you would never want to see her in that much pain.
Life continues for a while......
Then you lose your dog to cancer as well, your best friend who has been there since you were five. Gone 3 days before your birthday, you go back to your significant other, and you cry some more.
Life drags on....
You're still depressed, and the only way you can fix it is to lose everything and prioritize your life. When you let go of the significant other, you tell her you'll be back, you'll be back to hold her and kiss her soon enough, you say "just let me figure this out."
She doesn't believe you'll be back, or she just wants to hurt you, but she goes for your best friend. He says yes. And it all gets worse.
I have my first mental breakdown, she doesn't want to talk to me, doesn't want to look at me.
My best friend tells me i just need to get over my dad dying, if it were so easy to get over, i would've done it a while ago to save myself from this situation. He also tells me that she never loved me, and that I used her, and manipulated her. when really, i've been there for her just as much as she has for me, even this, i did for her, for us.
She starts to hate me, she doesn't believe me when i say i care, she doesnt believe my true intentions. She just sees me as some stalker, some person who hurt her, and used her.
I did break her heart, i know, she is still tearing at mine. but like i said, i've never used her, nor am i stalking her.
So here I am, on the verge of some divine self-destruction, all because i'm trying to do the right thing. I can't say i'm sorry enough, I will gladly forget all this when its resolved.
So before you say you know what i'm going through, you've been there, or i'm over-reacting. Go diagnose your father with cancer then tell your loved ones to do everything in there power to break your heart. Then we can talk about how you understand.
