Not sure if this is the right place for this.
My Dad is 77. Up until the last couple of months he has been extraordinarily fit and healthy, slim, swims and cycles etc.
His short term memory and ability to remember words started to slip just in the summer but has got quite severe.
He has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer which has spread to his lymph nodes and bones. He does not understand this. I only know because I rang the hospital myself to make sense of his garbled comments about appointments. He has been going to the wrong places on the wrong days. He has had an MRI but has no recall of it. He has had a biopsy but thinks he only has something called a carcinoma so it’s not cancer. He is due to have further MRIs to determine the spread but cannot take this in. He has been given hormone therapy medication but I have no idea if he knows what he’s doing with it. He has to set up injections at the GP and can’t seem to do it.
He is suddenly overwhelmed by absolutely everything. He doesn’t know what month it is or what meal is next. He had no idea of my name earlier.
This decline has happened in about 4 months.
I live 80 miles away and am an only child. Dad is a widower.
There is no chance of him moving. I start a new job on Monday.
What should I be doing? Apart from crying?