*Please know the following blog post is from my grief series on losing my father. Some are diary entries and some are reflections after the fact. Thank you for reading and if you found this blog because you're suffering your own grief journey please know I love you, I see you, and I'm holding you in my heart.
Just as the rest of the world was blissfully unaware that everything as we know it was about to change, so was I. But COVID and all it's madness wasn't going to uproot my world; cancer was. My dad had been on a business trip where his upper back was hurting when he came home. He insisted the bed was too small and that brought on this new pain (being a 6'7" man this somewhat made sense). But after a few treatments at a local spinal clinic the pain was too rough and mom and dad went to urgent care and then the ER. Dad mostly got admitted bc of his a fib (a heart condition he had been living with and was well controlled) for observation and to get to the bottom of the pain. I walked in the morning after my dad was admitted with a dozen doughnuts and a carafe of coffee for the nurses (ALWAYS take care of the medical team y'all, the way to a nurses heart is through their stomach). I walked in to that room a woman so carefree and unaware that my world was about to crumble.
Metastasized bone cancer.
All in dad's thoracic spine.
And although I knew what the dr would say, I asked anyways, "So the treatment plan is...?"
"Palliative of course," said the doctor nonchalantly.
Palliative, or comfort care.
Meaning, this cancer is terminal and all we can do is keep you comfortable as you die. After the doctor left, the real hardness began; I had to explain to my dad what the doctor just said, that you are going to die from this. My sister was on her way to town and all I could think of is how I had to break her heart too when she arrived. And of course I had to wait because mom always worried about people driving on emotion.
Later that day after the shock waves went through our family the world was slowly starting to raise the COVID alarm and the staff told my mom she'd have to sleep in the waiting room not next to my dad's bed. Where she's slept for the last 51 years. Step one to mom realizing they will be apart. We were blessed enough to have dad's heart stabilized well enough to go home the DAY before visitors could no longer be in the hospital with loved ones. The shut down began. So among the chaos and the uncertainty I remember not caring one damn bit about the world. I couldn't lose my daddy. The one man who has shown me ultimate patience and unconditional love.