My family is falling apart - long.
My world has been turned upside down, we found out on Sat that dad has cancer. I've been typing this for ages and I'm still not even halfway through, I don't mind if you don't read it, it was only as I was typing that I've realised it's good for me to put it all out there, get things straight in my head the way they happened so I can remember them.
For anyone who knows me, please, no mention on fb. There are a lot of people who we haven't told yet.
He went out with some friends on Friday night and collapsed, hit his head, elbow and broke his thumb when he passed out. Some lovely ladies were there who were nurses, they looked after him and called the ambo. Went to hospital and they scanned his head in case of concussion or a bleed etc... from the fall. Mum was at the hossy with him on Fri night until after midnight, she called around 6am the next day to find out how he was and was told the dr needs to speak with dad and she needs to be there.
Cue the first lot of churning in my guts when I got that call from mum. The dr wanting a family member present when delivering news is never a good thing. I picked up mum and sister and off we went. The Consultant came into the room, took one look at my sister who's 29 weeks pregnant and took mum outside to tell her the news that dad has cancer. Consultant then came back into the room, my sister (who doesn't deal too well with bad news/hospitals etc...) left the room and hung out in the corridoor with mum. Sadly, I was the one who had to hold dads hand while he was told he has cancer.
More CT scans, blood tests etc... dad was getting stroppier and stroppier by the minute, the poor man has never been in a hospital before and gets the 'heebie jeebies' from them so he was struggling. At one stage I had to jump on the bed and wrestle a t-shirt off him to stop him discharging himself! I have a nice bruise on my knee for my efforts.
Anyway..... The Registrar now comes in, they have the results from the ct scan from Sat morning (Fri night was an emergency scan and not as detailed), plus they now have some blood test results and it's not good. Sister leaves the room again. Dad has cancer in his upper lobe of his right lung, in his lymph nodes, 2 tumors in his brain and it's in his adrenal gland as well. The Registrar says it's not good, a cure is extremely unlikely, all dad is concerned about is going back to work and how they're supposed to fly to Syd and QLD on Thurs night to see my Grandad (mums dad), who has just had a fall, and had skin cancers cut out of his head. The Registrar was fantastic, he told dad he's not going back to work for at least 2 weeks and to use that time to carefully think about what his priorities are and spend the time with his family.
After he leaves, I leave to give mum and dad some space, and to go find my sister who has no idea about any of this, I am the bearer of bad news for her. The rest of Saturday is a blur, at some stage dad was move to the respiratory ward later that evening.
Sunday was spent at the respiratory ward and calling family and close friends. Breaking the news to people dad has been friends with for 40years is heartbreaking, the silence on the phone after the news is delivered is heartbreaking, I kept finding myself apologising for giving them bad news.
Too many thoughts in my head, will finish this later.
