The Big C

As my thoughts are prone to now, I think of my Dad and wonder how he is doing.  Recently I was awoken by a phone call from my sister to say that Dad had been taken to hospital because he was having trouble breathing.  With Mesothelioma this is to be expected but I was a surprised that he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance because I didn't realize things had become that bad.

During the phone conversation with my sister, (she is a nurse with many years of experience) we chatted back and forth as to what could have been the reason for Dad needing to go to hospital, especially considering she had only been home two days from having visited with him, and came to the conclusion that Dad was probably just short of breath because maybe he had a little anxiety related incident.  Rather than jump to conclusions and imagine all the bad things it could be, we decided to just wait and see what the results from any of the tests being performed on him were.

A couple of hours later my sister calls back to tell me that Dad was resting peacefully and breathing on his own without the aid of oxygen or any other medication, (big sigh of relief)  but that the doctors were going to keep Dad overnight for observation.  She went on to say that scans undertaken have shown that although there has been progression of his cancer, it is still confined to his right lung (this is great news).  We were concerned as "Meso Cancer", once it starts to progresses outside the lung it is all down hill from there very quickly.

I handled the news that Dad was in hospital pretty well to start with.... although surprised at the time, I am expecting many phone calls like this one.  Then, given time over the next couple of days, I starting thinking (selfishly of course,) OMG is this going to be my life now, waiting for phone calls from my sisters to tell me that Dad is in hospital because of this, or Dad is being tested for that, or Dad's not having a good day.  Selfish thoughts, thoughts, that I am ashamed to say, were filtering through my head more often that I would like them too.  

Here I am thinking woe is me, when my Dad is lying in a hospital bed, a 14 hour drive away from me, on his own, struggling for each inhalation of breath, and here I am thinking, is this going to be my life now?  How selfish is that!!!!!!!

So now that I have acknowledged I was being totally self absorbed in my thinking, mentally smacking myself around for being (understandably) a little selfish with my thoughts when the inevitable happened and my thoughts turned to be more about Dad .  I have been thinking that I can no longer hang on to the "woe is me" and I should be thinking "woe is Dad."  He is the one lying in hospital now, struggling to breathe and here I am wondering how my life is going to be.  OMG Janeen, snap the hell out of it.

I read a book once, called Life's Lessons by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. She was a world renowned expert on the terminally ill and other things.  The book changed my life in that it has provided me with some wonderful insights to how my mind works and processes things (normally with those diagnosed as terminally ill however, in one of her books she did explain how her research can be applied to humanity and not just to the terminally ill),  that happen around me.  I am really good at not holding a grudge, I process events quickly, I don't normally act irrationally and I am generally a pretty level headed kind of person.  Quite often I manage to get people really frustrated with me because my "way of thinking" supposedly isn't normal.  (Though more common than some would think.)

After having read this book "Life's Lessons" and quite a few others by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, I do have a better understanding of where my Dad's thoughts would be, but still I can't possibly understand exactly what is going to through his mind, after all I am not him and I'm only interpreting him through my own life experiences.  What on earth could he be thinking as he lays in the hospital bed, facing his own mortality?

I wondered if he was thinking about the things that he wanted to do with his life, but will never get the chance to.... and this led me to ask him when I spoke with him yesterday, "Dad if you could be anywhere in the world doing anything you wanted right now, what would you be doing?"  I am not quite sure what I was expecting his answer to be, but it certainly wasn't the one that I got.  He said simply, "Neen, I would love to be at home, sitting in a chair surrounded by you girls (there are 4 daughters) talking, chatting and reminiscing about your life and your Mum, but mostly, I just want to breathe normally again"

I thought, maybe he would be thinking about how he never got to give away his youngest daughter (me) at her wedding, how he will never see his grandchildren marry, or their children (three of them are old enough to have children but don't).  He is going to miss milestone events and moments that change history, life changing medical breakthrough's, maybe even a cure for his type of Cancer. He is going to miss family gathering's and holiday's overseas, the sun shining on his face and the smell of the sea air that he loves so much.  He won't be able to whisper "sweet dreams baby girl" when he says goodbye to me on the phone and he won't be able to tell me to "get my head in the game"  I won't hear the words "I'm proud of you Neeny Been" or, "Why did you do it that way, you should have done it like this" and he won't get to see how his idea of my happiness isn't my happiness, but his.  He won't get to see that over time, how I have changed and become healthy, and that have I found the reason for my issues and that I am working to overcome them every day.  He won't be able to look at me in the years to come with an all knowing look that says to me "See I told you you could do it, why you no wisten to me" (and no, that isn't a spelling mistake).......

Then I realized that all the things I thought he may be thinking about, were actually all the things I wanted for him and things I wanted him to experience WITH ME.  When I stopped and looked at the way I was speaking, it was all about me, and what I wanted for him.  I wanted him to walk me down the isle one day (me, who swore she would never get married all of a sudden wanted too) and it was me, who wanted Dad to see and be apart of all of these things.

I never thought just how impossible his wish would be for him.  Not the sitting around and talking to his daughters part, because that, I can make that happen.  But Dad's wish is so much more simple.... He just wants to keep breathing.




Janeen Hayes 2015