by Anne Harrell

Created on: January 11, 2009   Last Updated: January 12, 2009

Death of a parent

The horror of the unthinkable of losing a parent became an immense possibility when in the middle August of 2005, my father-in-law had taken seriously ill and had to be put into the hospital for a number of health reasons that mounted up to be very grim for Dad to be with us much longer. Over the last couple of years, Dad had seemed to be sliding down hill pretty fast when it came to his health. Many of times, I have been around Dad when I noticed that Dad might have been in intense pain. The thoughts of losing Dadwere very hard for me to think about since he was like my blood father. I couldn't think about possibility Dad's life being over and going on without him... There were times I tried to hide the thoughts that Dad might have cancer. Our biggest fear was Dad might have had cancer of the lungs, which wasn't where the cancer had taken up residents. The concern I had that was gnawing at my emotions where there were a couple of times I had walked in on Dad just in the nick of time that I had kept Dad from passing away. I have always heard that three strikes and you are out. The thoughts of finding Dad in time bothered me that the third strike Dad will die.

When Mom took Dad to his primary doctor for a regular doctor's appointment, the doctor-wanted Dad to have been seen by another doctor to check him because he felt there was some bleeding is his colon after his last appointment two weeks earlier. Dad didn't want to go to the doctor because he feared the out come- he had canceled the doctor's appointment saying he would go later. I have a feeling Dad knew something serious was happening and didn't want to know. The doctor became angry with Dad over not following his advice. Without any warning, the doctor picked up the phone and called for an ambulance to take Dad directly to the hospital.

After the doctor had admitted him to the hospital, he had ordered several tests to see what was happening with Dad. The first worry of the doctor was that Dad's hemoglobin was very lowmeaning that Dad was bleeding from somewhere possibility in his colon. When the GI doctor had looked at the colon the first thing he saw was a tumor that was extremely large in his colon. The prognosis was if the surgeon was able to remove the tumor that Dad could make it back to good health. Dad was prepared for surgery in the next couple of days. Leading up to the surgery there were a couple other things that popped up that proved serious. Dad's heart was starting to

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>