I Want My Dad Back

Taken on 2-17-2016

I am sitting here listening to my dad groan under labored breathing. My days are all running together but I think this is day number five that I have sat with him and watched his rapid decline. Sleep has been very sparse for me and my mother over this past week as dad tends to sleep more in the day than he does the night, which keeps us hopping up and down nearly every hour on end to tend to his needs.

My heart is wrenching from having to see my dad go through the devastation that cancer perpetrates on the human body. A man that once was the picture of perfect health now sits as nothing but a frail, broken skeleton-like creature unable to perform even the simplest of human maneuvers. His legs no longer hold him up, his arms unable to raise above his waist. All of his life his greatest joy was to sip on a morning cup of coffee, now he cannot even hold the cup to his lips to drink. He hasn’t eaten anything for a week. The offer of food to him is met with a look of disgust and rejection. We do not force feed him per his own orders given to us weeks ago when he was still in a normal frame of mind.

Taken on 2-17-2016

At times he is able to speak plainly but more times than not his slurs are unintelligible. I believe that his mind is fully aware of everything that is going on but the effects of powerful pain killers and lack of nutrients in his body often causes him to react much like an Alzheimer’s patient. He is restless yet worn out. He sits most of the time with his eyes closed, a pained expression on his face, loudly sighing and uttering phrases such as, “Oh Lord help us.”

I never thought I would see the day when I would have to pick my own dad up and carry him from bed to wheelchair to recliner. I know he is embarrassed and irritated that my mother and I have to help him do the things that he has been able to do all of his life such as using the bathroom, clothing himself, or brushing his teeth. Cancer is no respecter of persons, it is a debilitating, evil scourge upon the human race.

 I want my dad back. I do not want to remember him this way. How I wish I could sit and talk with him about the Bible some more or to go on one of our all-night crappie fishing trips as we did years ago. My dad has been the most rock solid person in my life. No matter what I may have been going through or trouble that I was up against, I knew that I could always count on him to have the answers. What am I going to do without him?

Taken on 2-19-2016

 I am a man of faith but lately my faith has become weak. I feel helpless like I am drowning and barely holding my head up out the water. I understand that sin is the culprit behind all of the misery, pain, and sickness of mankind, yet I do not understand why God’s children must suffer so in the final stages of their lives. I am not mad at God like I was when my older sister Pam was stricken with Leukemia and taken from us, but I am dismayed. I do trust God and love Him and ultimately I know within my heart that He knows what is best and that He loves us. I just wish that it could be easier.