My amazing Dad lost his fight
Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 10:54 am
After fighting a hard battle since diagnosis in August my darling Dad lost his fight with pancreatic cancer this week and he died in the early hours of Wednesday morning. We are all completely devastated.
It had been a rocky couple of weeks as I have posted on my other threads here but in his last two days he started to vomit and bring up what appeared to be blood - it looked like coffee grounds. He also suddenly started to retain fluid - not only in his feet as he had been doing since starting chemo. It had crept up his legs into his groin and stomach area, the night before he died we called an out of hours doc who after liaising with the chemo unit over the phone inserted a catheter as his bladder had also started to retain urine.
The next day he was unable to get out of bed. The GP came in and after seeing how much he had deteriorated and how low his BP was thought it best he went into hospital.Dad wasn't keen but we promised him that no matter what we would have him home by the Thursday. He went in by ambulance at 5.30pm on Tuesday and we stayed with him until 10.30pm. While we were there Dad suddenly took my hand and squeezed it looking intently at me. I got a huge lump in my throat and although no words were spoken I felt it was as though he knew the end was near.
I was just home when I received a call from the hospital to say he had vomited quite a lot of blood which made them think he had bleeding in the gullet, they were going to give him a blood transfusion overnight but there was no need to come back up to hospital. Half an hour later at midnight I got a panicked call from my sister saying we had to get to the hospital urgently as he had had another massive bleed. We all rushed there but it was too late. We stayed in the relatives room with him to say our goodbyes and it was incredibly sad but very peaceful.
My only comfort is knowing he managed to stay at home throughout his illness and only spent a matter of hours in the hospital.
Funeral is next Tuesday the week before Christmas. I had joked with Dad that if he didn't make Christmas I would be setting a place at the table for him anyway and that is what we intend to do. To be honest I'd miss out Christmas completely but the kids - albeit all teenagers now - think we should carry on as normal.
Thank you to everyone who has shared this awful journey with me - to Debs, Sue, Jools, Laura, Paul and others and also to moderator Jeni - the support and encouragement from you all really did keep me going.
Eventually I would like to think I can come back here to offer support to the many who will be here after me.
In the meantime we intend to try to raise awareness of this terrible disease and even now are thinking of ways to raise money for research. To my mind the clue is to find PC early so an operation is possible - we need a way to check regularly, like the 3 yearly test we do at the moment for bowel cancer. Let's hope that medical science will come up with something soon. It's too late for my Dad but for myself and the generation behind me early detection has to be the key.
I wish you all a peaceful Christmas,
With much love,
Lulu xx
It had been a rocky couple of weeks as I have posted on my other threads here but in his last two days he started to vomit and bring up what appeared to be blood - it looked like coffee grounds. He also suddenly started to retain fluid - not only in his feet as he had been doing since starting chemo. It had crept up his legs into his groin and stomach area, the night before he died we called an out of hours doc who after liaising with the chemo unit over the phone inserted a catheter as his bladder had also started to retain urine.
The next day he was unable to get out of bed. The GP came in and after seeing how much he had deteriorated and how low his BP was thought it best he went into hospital.Dad wasn't keen but we promised him that no matter what we would have him home by the Thursday. He went in by ambulance at 5.30pm on Tuesday and we stayed with him until 10.30pm. While we were there Dad suddenly took my hand and squeezed it looking intently at me. I got a huge lump in my throat and although no words were spoken I felt it was as though he knew the end was near.
I was just home when I received a call from the hospital to say he had vomited quite a lot of blood which made them think he had bleeding in the gullet, they were going to give him a blood transfusion overnight but there was no need to come back up to hospital. Half an hour later at midnight I got a panicked call from my sister saying we had to get to the hospital urgently as he had had another massive bleed. We all rushed there but it was too late. We stayed in the relatives room with him to say our goodbyes and it was incredibly sad but very peaceful.
My only comfort is knowing he managed to stay at home throughout his illness and only spent a matter of hours in the hospital.
Funeral is next Tuesday the week before Christmas. I had joked with Dad that if he didn't make Christmas I would be setting a place at the table for him anyway and that is what we intend to do. To be honest I'd miss out Christmas completely but the kids - albeit all teenagers now - think we should carry on as normal.
Thank you to everyone who has shared this awful journey with me - to Debs, Sue, Jools, Laura, Paul and others and also to moderator Jeni - the support and encouragement from you all really did keep me going.
Eventually I would like to think I can come back here to offer support to the many who will be here after me.
In the meantime we intend to try to raise awareness of this terrible disease and even now are thinking of ways to raise money for research. To my mind the clue is to find PC early so an operation is possible - we need a way to check regularly, like the 3 yearly test we do at the moment for bowel cancer. Let's hope that medical science will come up with something soon. It's too late for my Dad but for myself and the generation behind me early detection has to be the key.
I wish you all a peaceful Christmas,
With much love,
Lulu xx