Dad is sick

 So as i promised in my last blog, i am here talking about my dad. Actually whenever i think about my dad, my memories are filled only with images of him being sick. That’s the reason i am trying every thing in my power to act as normal as possible for my children. It is hard. Cancer is not your normal sickness. It’s like your best jealous friend who is always with you but ready to stab you in your back when you’re not looking. So let’s go back to that morning. My mum and dad were already awake and talking about something in a hushed voice. We came out and sat on the couch. I needed to go pee. I went to the toilet and saw blood on the seat and around it. It wasn’t just red, it was weird brownish red colour with something else which i now understand was tumour tissues. I was bursting but couldn’t make my self go. I got scared and ran back to mum. I asked my mum what blood like thing is in the bathroom. My brothers heard me too and ran to check the bathroom. Oh sorry, i will clean, mum said and went to clean the bathroom. While cleaning she told us that my dad went to pee and blood came out with urine. She assured us that he might be okay. That might be something not so serious. Okay we had to go to school that day and dad went to the hospital. He had to get admitted there. He didn’t come back for a week. We couldn’t go because of school. Then one morning one of dad’s friend came to our house and told us that my dad wanted to see us. By the way, my never a phone person, he didn’t call us about his condition. It was all a suspense. So with that friend of my dad, all four of us went to the hospital. There was my dad, wearing hospital clothes. He was looking thin, his eyes were looking bigger and wider than normal. He tried to smile and we sat around him on the hospital bed. Then dad asked us about our school. Dad’s friend told mum in a whisper that it was cancer. We heard him. Mum started crying. Dad got angry that she was crying infront of us. But she couldn’t help but sob. We were old enough to understand and know that cancer means death. We were just looking at one another and smelling that strong hospital smell. I felt so numb. Everything else about that day is so blur. I don’t remember anything other than what my brother said to us on our way home, “ cancer has no cure. No one survives.” I remember my mum almost scolding him not to say anything like that. Then my mum looked at me and said, “Dad wasn’t looking that poorly. I believe in God.”

Our journey with cancer started. Same journey which anybody with cancer had to ho through. We came face to face with concept of death and fear of loosing pretty early in life. So after all the tests and scans, it was decided that Dad would be operated on his bladder and he should be fine after that. Life is not that cute, is it? After waiting some time. Finally day of his operation came. We were not there. Because yeah, school. Apparently studies were more important than your day getting cut open in a different city. So, dad went under the knife. We got a phone call, that he will come home after one month at the least. He needed to recover from the surgery. This is what we got nothing else. Dad came home after healing, we were happy. Dad told us that doctors haven’t taken the tumour out because when they open him up they found it touching the tissue of other organ. So they stitched him back without doing anything. We were shocked and i cried, and mum cried. My brothers hid their face in my mum’s dress. That was the saddest day because after my dad’s diagnosis we were given hope. That operation was our hope. We thought our family would be able to beat this shitty disease. But come on who were we kidding. Dad started chemo and radiation at a local hospital. Oh how much he suffered. That poor soul. Diarrhoea and then his left leg got swollen, oedema in his leg. He couldn’t walk. He stopped treatment. He became bed ridden. We used to carry his couch holding mum from one side and we three from the other side. He used to get sick of the room so we used to help him out in the garden. Every time our friends come to our house and ask about dad, we had one thing to say, ‘dad is sick’. But after a year, we started avoiding our friends because it was hard not to be a normal family. Dad became so weak that he was unrecognisable. My little brother started avoiding him as he used to feel scared. My older brother became very quiet. I started daydreaming. I made myself totally immune to emotions. After one year and half, another morning came. My dad yelled out, “i am going. I took that”. I still don’t know what has he taken, but he surely was going. His body started convulsing, his face twisted and ot seemed he wanted to say something. Mum asked us to rub his feet and hands. A quiet morning, suddenly turn into a morning of ultimate struggle to keep my dad alive. All four of us doing our bits, rubbing his hands, feet and talking to him. Mum put his head in her lap and that’s it. He was gone. My dad was gone. He was gone and left us confused, alone and sad. I had hard time dealing with his death. I will share with you in my next blog. Reliving all the memories are a bit too much right now.

Hugs

P