Sorry but anyone around to lend an ear while I tell you about my dying dad?

[bibbitybobbityhat]

?

Talk away sends and

Oh ive namechanged but am a reg.

My ears are here. Got a nice comfy chair and you can use my lovely soft woolly blanket.

Stepmother phoned tonight. Said I need to hurry up and visit.

am here too

Oh bibbity, I'm so sorry

Tell us more. I'm here all night.

Are they close by and easy to get to or you got to organise a zillion things to get there ( just to add to the worry and stress). Poor you.

He has been having treatment for cancer. He is not making any progress, just getting sicker and sicker. I have been holding out for seeing him when he is "feeling a bit better" but it doesn't look like that day is going to come ... it has all been downhill since I last saw him at New Year.

It so odd.

Intellecutally, I can cope with him dying (he is 81 ffs!) and I am not very close to him. He has not in all honesty been a great dad to me.

But still ...

Bibbity - just go and see him. It may well be uttterly crap and you hate it BUT you will feel much , much worse if he dies and you realise you wanted to go. Look on it as insurance for both of you - because he will know, I think, that's he's been lacking. Now is the time to put away all of that and just be father and daughter.

But still, he's the only Dad you have. You are his little girl, no-one elses little girl.

It's also scary to have a parent die, there's so many emotions to deal with.
Sorrow. Extreme grieve if close. Guilt if not so close. Whatever the relationship - it's painful, heartbreaking and hard.

Take very good care of you, there's no right and wrong on how and what you should feel.

I will go and see him.

I agree with Annie - go and see him and talk to him.

My mum died from advanced breast cancer. We were very close, but she was in Leeds and I was in London, so getting up to see her was difficult, especially as, when she was having chemotherapy, we were advised not to see her, in case we passed on any infection to her.

In the end, she died very suddenly from an infection, only a few weeks after being told that her cancer had returned and spread. I got the chance to see her, the day before she died, but she was already very ill from multiple organ failure, and was pretty much out of it. As I said, we were very close, so there was no 'unfinished business' between us, IYKWIM, but it still makes me sad that we didn't have any opportunity to talk about her, her illness, what she wanted to happen when she died (as she knew by then that her cancer was terminal.)

It sounds, though, like you may have some things that you need to deal with/talk about with your dad, and I would really recommend that you try and do that sooner rather than later.

So sorry for you. It's a bastard disease.

It is always a shock,no matter how much you "intellectually" know its going to happen xxx.Do what you feel in your gut,it may be the right thing to go or the right thing not to,only you can answer this,but whatever you decide don't feel guilty xxxSending love xx

So sorry BBH. Hand here ready for holding, shoulder very big and comfy, ears enormous, let it all out

I will go but am distressed at the idea of him knowing that my visit marks the end of it all. Should I say to him, "don't worry, I will come back again for another visit before you actually die?".

If he says to me "I haven't been a great dad" - I guess I just have to deny all that and reassure him.

I am so upset and so distressed but it mainly feels as though this is all on behalf of my step mother and siblings (who are all much closer to him than I) and my children, who are scared. I am very very sad for them rather than me - or am I in denial? Probably.

If step mum thinks he is so bad, I can't understand why he is not in a hospice now? At least being treated for his awful symptoms.

bibbity - I've no wise words of advice, but can offer a listening ear.

Be gentle with yourself

Sorry that you are going through this. Have a similar situation with my dad. We don't talk, he was diagnosed with cancer a year ago but I haven't had contact because he isn't a nice person. I was still shocked and upset by the news though. Your situation sounds different though.....what has stopped you visiting? How do you feel?

So sorry chocolatehobnobs.

My dad is a nice person, just hasn't done very well by me as a father . All to do with divorce and second families and neglect and favouritism.

But I am not feeling sorry myself, atm, honest. Feeling sorry for our large family as a whole.

Just don't know what to do. Except visit.

Am so cross he didn't get a few healthy months. Thats all we fucking wanted, not years.

Thank you Annie and everyone else.