theaftermathofloss-blog

[theaftermathofloss-blog]

Truth.

It all started with a phone call. 

I don’t remember much of the day, except for that call. I hated answering the phone after that call. For 2 years I was plagued with fear anytime my phone rang. What could possibly go wrong next? I have to fucking work/I have my regular life to live...Why is this happening?! 

The worst part was waiting for that 1 phone call, that inevitable phone call. You know..That one when someone is terminally ill and you know they won’t make it. Except I never got that phone call (Don’t get me wrong, I received plenty of other depressing/sad phone calls but not that one). No no, my intuition knew and I made that call myself. 

So let’s start at the beginning...

My step mother called me about 2 years ago to notify me that my father was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. I had no idea what that meant, wtf is cancer really?! Until you are touched by cancer in your personal life there is no amount of ads on cigarette boxes that can train you for the real deal and the nightmare that is cancer. 

Sure...The photos are awful, but do you have a real connection to that person dying on the cigarette box? Do you see that person every single day? Can you communicate with that person on the box and honestly tell them that they still have something worth fighting for?

Let’s take it back...oh.....30-40 years ago when my dad was a younger lad.

My father used to box professionally. 

As a little girl, I never took much interest in boxing. I never really understood his obsession with it. He would take me out from time to time to visit some of the matches that were happening. He was kind of a legend in our small town and strangers would approach me telling me how awesome my dad was! 

There was always some internal sadness and desire in my father to be a part of the boxing world even though he no longer participated in the fighting.

I never knew why my father gave up his dream, and I never will. I never asked. I’m such a fucking selfish moron I never asked why. I never asked him a lot of things....

Ok, moving on.

So, 2 years ago when I received that phone call my father was in intensive care because his spine was fractured. The tumour in his back grew so massive that it fractured his spine and caused fluid to leak out through his entire body. The doctors say that he was lucky to survive the first wave of horror (yay!?) only to be tortured even further with chemotherapy. Doctors are sadists. 

That first round of Chemo-fucking-awful will forever be drilled into my brain. The sheer volume of horror still haunts my dreams at night. 

The doctors decided that because he was so out of it because he fractured his spine AND had fluid leaking throughout his entire body that they would completely take him off pain killers. Why?! because...it could kill him. So there I sit beside my fathers hospital bed as he screams in pain and talks complete nonsense to me. He begged me to kill him, to take him away from the hospital to make all his pain end so that he no longer had to feel. 

That......was torture.

I remember being the only one in the family who had the fucking balls to handle all the screaming, crying, begging and ranting. So I stayed by his bedside and held his hand. There was nothing I could say to make it any better, so I didn’t say anything. 

I DID HOWEVER, tear the ass hole of several doctors who tried to explain to me how putting him on painkillers would kill him. Thankfully, one doctor came to their senses and deduced that if they didn’t place him on painkillers he would kill himself via a heart attack. NO SHIT ASS HOLE. Fucking sadists. PS, the nurses were wonderful, thank god for nurses. I could hear them in the hallway “that’s his daughter in there, watching her father scream in pain...WHY AREN’T WE DOING ANYTHING..This is horrible...If that was my daughter”. They would then come into the room and try to comfort me, offering me water, food and all sorts of words that despite how beautiful they were could not make the situation any better. I will forever remember their kindness towards me and my father. 

There is no level of training or preparation that can help you anticipate what would happen if someone you love suddenly became very ill. The aftermath of that loss and the months and years prior of torture, false hope and broken relationships shape and change you into a very different person. There is no amount of religion that can excuse the torture of an illness and the level of pain that comes with it for all parties involved. 

This is my aftermath, my burden to carry everyday, the silent ghost of my fathers existence. The images and events that I will never be able to remove from my mind because they existed.