Dad has gone

[homecomfort]

My dad passed away Friday afternoon.
He had lung cancer, the death was horrific.
Me my brother and my sister were with him the whole time.
He begged to help him breathe, almost standing up, desperate for breath. He clung onto mybrother begging.
We could do nothing. My sister had his head in her arms. She looked into his eyes and told him to let go dad, its ok let go. You go to mum now, she is waiting.
We were all crying uncontrolably desperate to help him, but there was nothing we could do.
Through the six months of dad having lung cancer, we promised, the nurses and the doctors promised he would not choke to death and then he did.

I am sorry if this is all to much. I need to write what has happened. I spent the whole day in bed yesterday, i did not want to do anything. Today i am so numb, i cant quite beleve it actually happened.

[BoysAreLikeDogs]

So sorry for your loss

[Goober]

I'm still here if you still need to vent.
I could use a bit of a shout right now.

[ajandjjmum]

I know how heartbreaking it is to lose a parent - how much worse that must be when their death is so traumatic.
Having said that, we all find something to feel guilty about. We spent hours with my Dad, but he sent us home 'to the children' every night, and he died when we weren't there. Although I know it was what he would probably have chosen, I still feel guilty about it.
I would say, do discuss this with those you feel able to. I understand that your ds and db are suffering too, but you will all deal with this in different ways.
Thinking of you.

[throckenholt]

what a horrible experience.

The sad thing is we all have this image of death as some peaceful "going to sleep" type event - when often it is not like that at all. But we have so little experience of it that it comes as an awful shock.

Try and remind yourself of the 99% of his life that was good - don't focus on the end. And don't blame yourself for the way it ended - you (and maybe the doctors) didn't have any way of making it different.

[teslagirl]

We as a society have lost the ability to deal with death. We just about never get to witness real pain first hand, let alone death. We cling onto the 'movie' version of it thus are completely shocked when we see the reality, especially a death caused by lung cancer.

We want our loved ones carers to administer drugs to take the pain away. But we also want the right to sue them if the drugs are 'deemed' to have hastened death. We want our loved one to die at home in the loving arms of their family. Yet they cannot receive the level of pain relief at home, with the best will in the world, than they might in hospital.

By all means ask the questions but I think it's so important, in the end for your own peace of mind to see that lung cancer was the culprit here, not the failure of care.

I lost my father quite recently and rather traumatically but for me- and of course I can only speak for myself, it was important for me to realise that everyone did what they could within the boundaries of medical science and the law and that the important thing was to remember him in rude good health, not gasping for his final breath.

[random]

[homecomfort]

Sorry i have not posted back sooner,been long past few days.

I am so sorry for everyones loss.I agree with what you say totally throckenholt.
Also teslagirl i agree too. I could never knock the care my dad was given. All was the best he could have, private health care, nurses coming to the home were terific. However throughout the whole process we clung on to the doctors and nurses every word. We gave our faith and trust to them. They never failed us at all, but i still wish to know some answers. I suppoes thats just human nature considering none of us expected him to choke to death.

Goober i am hear if you need a good rant and chat. Also i am on msn [email protected] if you want to chat

I think what makes it hard for us, because like you say throckenholt its not a 'going to sleep' moment for many of us. However with my mum (she passed away 2yrs ago)she collapsed at home one evening and within 24hrs she was dead. She had a stroke. None of us spoke to her as she was in a coma and never woke up. She just stopped breathing due to a hemeridge in her brain. To this day we still have questions.

At least they will be together now, they met when they were 16 so they had many good years together. Dad never really was himself again after she passed away.

I am trying to keep busy now (we even got a puppy with 2 young dc its hectic but good fun.The frunerl is not till next thursday so till then i know none of us will let this sink in properly.