The anger phase
Of the 5 stages of grief, my dad's going through the angry phase. He's been in his room for the past 6 hours and hasn't emerged yet. I don't know if I should check up on him or just let him rest since yesterday was such a long and frustrating day.
We already knew my dad's prognosis would be terminal. We already knew there would be no treatment and no real options. It seemed like up until our visit with the oncologist, my dad accepted this, but now I know he hadn't.
He's so angry now. Angry that he's only got 3-6 months to live and that chemo would only increase his life span by a couple more months. He's angry at the battery of tests he needs to continue to go through (6 vials of blood yesterday alone) for a few more hours of a compromised life--most of these hours spent in downtown Houston traffic and hospital waiting rooms surrounded by sickness and impending death. He's angry that he's incapacitated and dependent on his wife and kids.
He chewed my mom out this morning about her driving ability telling her she was an awful driver and that all the accelerating and swerving caused his current nausea. He has tons of bruising on his left side caused by the cancerous mass popping the blood vessels against his ribcage. Somehow that was her fault too. He said he was hungry and she scurried to make him his breakfast, when she wasn't fast enough, he got up and shuffled back to his room. My mom offered to bring it to him and basically replied with "Just shut up."
Part of me wants to just spike everything he eats or drinks with massive doses of opiods and sedatives and put him out of his misery. We've got all them right here--morphine, fentanyl patches, hydromorphone, vicodin, versed, lortab...heck we might as well add the ambien to the mix just to make sure he does fall asleep. All of these were prescribed within the last 3 months. Shit, I'm surprised there aren't any anti-depressants in the cabinet.
Now, before everyone runs off and calls the feds, I assure you I'm not going to do that, but it is tempting. I almost told my dad during our 2 hour delay for his next appointment that if he chose to not even attempt chemo, he wouldn't have to go through all this-all the waiting and lab work, but I kept my mouth shut.
Before the definitive word that his condition was terminal, I was able to talk to him freely about how he felt. Now, he just shuts me out.
We already knew my dad's prognosis would be terminal. We already knew there would be no treatment and no real options. It seemed like up until our visit with the oncologist, my dad accepted this, but now I know he hadn't.
He's so angry now. Angry that he's only got 3-6 months to live and that chemo would only increase his life span by a couple more months. He's angry at the battery of tests he needs to continue to go through (6 vials of blood yesterday alone) for a few more hours of a compromised life--most of these hours spent in downtown Houston traffic and hospital waiting rooms surrounded by sickness and impending death. He's angry that he's incapacitated and dependent on his wife and kids.
He chewed my mom out this morning about her driving ability telling her she was an awful driver and that all the accelerating and swerving caused his current nausea. He has tons of bruising on his left side caused by the cancerous mass popping the blood vessels against his ribcage. Somehow that was her fault too. He said he was hungry and she scurried to make him his breakfast, when she wasn't fast enough, he got up and shuffled back to his room. My mom offered to bring it to him and basically replied with "Just shut up."
Part of me wants to just spike everything he eats or drinks with massive doses of opiods and sedatives and put him out of his misery. We've got all them right here--morphine, fentanyl patches, hydromorphone, vicodin, versed, lortab...heck we might as well add the ambien to the mix just to make sure he does fall asleep. All of these were prescribed within the last 3 months. Shit, I'm surprised there aren't any anti-depressants in the cabinet.
Now, before everyone runs off and calls the feds, I assure you I'm not going to do that, but it is tempting. I almost told my dad during our 2 hour delay for his next appointment that if he chose to not even attempt chemo, he wouldn't have to go through all this-all the waiting and lab work, but I kept my mouth shut.
Before the definitive word that his condition was terminal, I was able to talk to him freely about how he felt. Now, he just shuts me out.
Labels: cancer, death, emotionally drained, family
posted by cchang at 2:28 PM
2 Comments:
crappy as all of this is, your post is funny. :) i can see the temptation in spiking his food. at least then he'd be in a happy(er) place.
Well, you have to laugh at *something* when situations like this arise. The issue is that up until recently my dad would be the one cracking the jokes or laughing with us, but now he's just too worn out to do so. He does mellow out when his morphine kicks in so we do get reprieve from her anger...I just hope he learns to accept this for real soon.
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