It's Been a Devastating Year

Sorry to hear that Mike. My condolences to you and yours.
 
Mike,

I don't think my anger over losing my Dad to medical malpractice has ever gone away. Like your Dad if he was properly diagnosed, he had a 90% survival rate. By the time they figured out they had made a mistake and six months passed......it had metastasized and blocked his colon.

I learned two things from what happened.

One: It is up to the individual to make the necessary decisions. Relying on others (or the government) is just not reliable when your life is in danger.

Two: You find no better friends than the people who care about you when you are consumed with grief.

It is hard to focus anger when it is meshed with grief. I will tell you that I made a promise to myself to help my friends when "something is bothering them and they think it will go away". Sometimes it turns out to be nothing and then there was 5 months ago when a close friend found out he had a glioblastoma after just losing his balance at 52 years old.

May God bless you and your family.
 
Mike,
Sorry for your loss. I feel your pain. I lost my dad 12 years ago. He developed a very rare and treatable blood disease closely related to Leukemia caused by the Dioxin that the developer did not disclose while building and selling houses on a contaminated tract. His doctor at the time decided to "experiment" with him. After 3 years of declining health and then one day finding my dad laying in bed waiting to die, i pulled the plug on his doc and got him in with mine. 6 hours after his first visit he was in the hospital. An oncologist devised a plan to help him but warned that it may be too little too late. He indicated that if my dad had been referred to him when he was originally diagnosed, he could have held the disease in check. The disease caused the white blood cells to attack the red blood cells in his body. That eventually caused a heart attack and he died in his kitchen before his body hit the floor. It was how he wanted to go, he was not one to linger or be a burden. I am still angry at his first doctor. I wanted to sue badly, but my mom didn't have the stomach for it. I still miss my Dad a ton, but it has eased with time.

I will tell you that not a day has passed in 12 years that I have not thought about my dad. At first it was very painful, but now it is pleasant memories and humorous stories. It gets easier. God bless you and your family. I learned after his passing that the people who say "let me know if you need anything' have no intention of helping you. The ones that really have your back just do things for you without asking. I learned who my true friends were. I have never uttered that phrase to anyone who is suffering from loss, I just do something or I don't.
 
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Hi fellas ..thank you again for all the sharing here. While your personal stories bring more tears yet again, you also help me not feel so alone. Losing a parent can be very lonely as many of you know. Especially one I was so close to. There have been times where I felt as if no one could possibly understand what I was going through, and yet many of you know exactly what I'm going through. For those of you that have also experienced this loss, I'm so very sorry. I can honestly say I know exactly how it feels now. This void ..this emptiness. It just can't be filled and it sucks. I know time will help but time is moving awfully slow right now.

@Gofirstclass I hope you continue to fight and continue to hold it at bay.

@brewster16 yes ..that's what I've learned after the fact and it creates a lot of anger and guilt. Why didn't I read more early on? We were told everything would be fine, and we believed them. Big mistake. It's enraging.

I have considered some sort of legal medical review of my dad's records to see if we might have anything here (and I think we do)..if only to help another family to potentially not have to endure what my family has gone through. But I'm not sure if my mom can do it. Definitely not now. If what she already suspects were proven as fact, I'm not sure she could take it. One day at a time for now.

@everyone who has posted here ...Amen and thank you.

God bless.
 
Mike,
I know it seems unfathomable right now, but it will get better with time. My Dad was my best friend. He was my role model and I admired how he worked his way from poverty to a very successful engineer, and I admired how he treated people the same whether it was a window washer or his banker. And he absolutely LOVED being on our boat. I think that first season after he passed (he died in January) was the roughest on me. It was a constant reminder of what we lost. But I got through it. I am a better person for trying to live up to my Dad's legacy.

The healing for you and your family will begin with the funeral. And eventually all of the guilt will fade and you will be left with great memories of the good times and great stories. It takes time but the fog of grief will lift and you will be better for having emerged. Again, so sorry for you loss. God Bless you and your family.
 
M Prod said:
Hi fellas ..thank you again for all the sharing here. While your personal stories bring more tears yet again, you also help me not feel so alone. Losing a parent can be very lonely as many of you know. Especially one I was so close to. There have been times where I felt as if no one could possibly understand what I was going through, and yet many of you know exactly what I'm going through. For those of you that have also experienced this loss, I'm so very sorry. I can honestly say I know exactly how it feels now. This void ..this emptiness. It just can't be filled and it sucks. I know time will help but time is moving awfully slow right now.

@Gofirstclass I hope you continue to fight and continue to hold it at bay.

@brewster16 yes ..that's what I've learned after the fact and it creates a lot of anger and guilt. Why didn't I read more early on? We were told everything would be fine, and we believed them. Big mistake. It's enraging.

I have considered some sort of legal medical review of my dad's records to see if we might have anything here (and I think we do)..if only to help another family to potentially not have to endure what my family has gone through. But I'm not sure if my mom can do it. Definitely not now. If what she already suspects were proven as fact, I'm not sure she could take it. One day at a time for now.

@everyone who has posted here ...Amen and thank you.

God bless.
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It does help to know others know what you are feeling for sure. Loosing parents is just rough however it happens. My Dad was killed right in front of us when his biplane crashed and burned at our family glider operation. His Mom was there and well as my Mom and my twin brother, a real family affair. In a way perhaps as tragic and terrible as it was, having the family right there made getting through it easier??? Fast forward 30 years and my brothers and I watched my mom wither away from Alzheimer's which was another kind of hell. In either case we had no one to second guess like you do with the questionable care that your Dad got. It's the Human condition and the real message we all hear is cherish the time you have with the people you love and don't let the silliest of differences rob that time from you.
CD
 
M Prod said:
Hi fellas ..thank you again for all the sharing here. While your personal stories bring more tears yet again, you also help me not feel so alone. Losing a parent can be very lonely as many of you know. Especially one I was so close to. There have been times where I felt as if no one could possibly understand what I was going through, and yet many of you know exactly what I'm going through. For those of you that have also experienced this loss, I'm so very sorry. I can honestly say I know exactly how it feels now. This void ..this emptiness. It just can't be filled and it sucks. I know time will help but time is moving awfully slow right now.

@Gofirstclass I hope you continue to fight and continue to hold it at bay.

@brewster16 yes ..that's what I've learned after the fact and it creates a lot of anger and guilt. Why didn't I read more early on? We were told everything would be fine, and we believed them. Big mistake. It's enraging.

I have considered some sort of legal medical review of my dad's records to see if we might have anything here (and I think we do)..if only to help another family to potentially not have to endure what my family has gone through. But I'm not sure if my mom can do it. Definitely not now. If what she already suspects were proven as fact, I'm not sure she could take it. One day at a time for now.

@everyone who has posted here ...Amen and thank you.

God bless.
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Here's one for you... I'll bet your Dad is more calm and comfortable now, than the water around your beautiful signature picture. Rest assured!
 
M PROD, So sorry for your loss I loss my dad 2 years ago and my sister 8 month later. My dad died peacefully but my sister God Bless her it was a horrible Death, the last 5-6 weeks was just almost unbearable and she was such a saint, never had an Enemy in her life. Cancer is a Terrible Disease.I know what you mean by a bad year, I feel for you because I have been there and it seems like a different World when your dad is gone cause we were a close Family, we went Boating almost every weekend when I was a kid and those were some of the best days of my life. He taught me so much. I miss him all the time and my Sister also I would always talk to her about my problems and she would listen and talk with me and then she would always give her opinion and then say but you're the one that has to make that decision. But she always listened and let me rant or whatever but she taught me to think things over and look at different ways to solve things. Then you also lost Sam and man do we get attached it breaks your heart to see them go.Time does make it better and the memories will stay with you hang in there and me and my family are sending Prayers all the way from Tennessee. May God Bless You and Your Family Through These Holidays..
 
M Prod said:
Hi guys ...I haven't been on this forum much this year and well, it's been a devastating year to say the least. Last April, my dad (who lives in Texas and is 71 years old) started noticing some blood in his urine. He made an appointment with a urologist who diagnosed him with overactive bladder and prescribed him some meds. The blood continued and so additional meds were prescribed. This went on for a couple of months. It wasn't until June 25 that a CT scan was ordered to 'see if meds are working' at which point a tumor was found in his bladder. Don't worry the urologist said ...we can most likely remove it through surgery and you'll be fine. So on July 10th, surgery was performed in an attempt to remove the tumor. It was a failure and I suspect this surgery made it much worse. My dad was referred to a urinary oncologist who did not do any additional scans and thought they would be able to remove the tumor through an additional surgery. And so that was scheduled for September 9th. Through July and August, my dad's pain levels grew from manageable to excruciating and blood (and even some solid tissue) continued to be excreted. Through those two months, the urinary oncologist constantly blew off my dad and told him this was (likely) just due to the surgery and cutting of the tumor. Mind you I was pleading with my mom over these 2 months that something was very wrong and they needed new scans! She would ask, and be told it's fine. I still don't for the life of me understand how they were blown off time and time again ...maybe they just didn't advocate enough? I don't know. Anyway fast forward to Labor Day weekend, my dad needs to enter the hospital due to pain ...8 days before 2nd scheduled surgery. Finally, new scans are ordered along with the FIRST MRI.

The finds were devastating.

Not only had the tumor grown exponentially and was dangerously close to his sciatic nerve, but a second tumor had formed, cancer had spread to his lymphatic system, and he had nodules beginning to form in his lungs. In a nutshell, he was screwed.

And so the urinary oncologist offered to refer him to an oncologist in his group ..to which I said go F@&K yourself ..and managed to get him in with one of the top oncologists in Texas. But even he said the prognosis was grim ..likely 6 months to a year. Mind you my dad was already a shell of the man I loved and looked up to my entire life. He had already lost 50 lbs. and needed a cane or a walker to just get to the bathroom. But the oncologist had a plan ...we try chemo for 12 weeks, then immunotherapy and radiation. He desperately wanted for that tumor to stay away from those nerves. And so chemo was started.

October and November were hell for my dad and hell for my mom. Hell for all of us, but especially my mom and ESPECIALLY my dad. My dad's mental state deteriorated and he grew weaker and weaker. New scans in November revealed that the chemo was not working and again ..he had to go into the hospital to manage the pain. The tumor(s) had reached the nerves causing unimaginable pain and suffering for him. His back down to his ankles. At one point he was on 50 different pain meds from Dilaudid to Morphine to Toradol to a Fentanyl patch. And half the time it didn't even work. But we were still hopeful. The doctor still thought that immunotherapy and radiation were worth a shot. And so after two weeks in the hospital, he finally went home and did his first immunotherapy infusion the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He had appts the same day with the radiologist to begin radiation therapy the following week. We knew things were dire, but we still had some hope.

On Thanksgiving Day, he couldn't walk and was going into serious decline and both physical and mental distress. On Friday he went back to the hospital. On Monday the oncologist said he was too weak and couldn't take anymore treatment and was admitted to Hospice care that Tuesday. 4 days later, this past Saturday Dec 4th, he passed away.

So that was that. I have all sorts of emotions around what's transpired here. Dreadful sadness, hopelessness, and more than anything right now ...anger. I'm angry at the doctors who misdiagnosed and dismissed his pain. I'm angry at the pandemic that kept us apart for so much of the last two years. I'm angry at all the precious moments that he will now miss. But most of all I'm angry at this disgusting, vile, evil disease called cancer. I'm angry at how it cheated my dad, how it ate him alive and made him suffer unimaginable pain and how it ultimately took him from all of us. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm devastated. I miss my dad.

So yeah ..it's been a year. As if this wasn't enough my beloved cat Sam who was my shadow for the last 15 years also passed away 8 days before my dad. So it's been super shitty as of late.

Anyway ..sorry to unload here, but that's why I haven't been around lately. Cancer sucks. It's horrible. And I wasn't expecting this to happen now, and it happened so fast. So fast! Longevity runs in my family. No one dies in their early 70's and most all have lived into late 80's or 90's. Top it off my dad never smoked or drank a day in his life .. so how he got this, I have no idea. I guess cancer doesn't discriminate.

So hold your loved ones close. Call them. Hug them. Tell them you love them. You really never know when they will be gone.

MProd Out

PS ..Probably selling the boat, but I'll get another thread going for that on some other day.
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I'm so sorry to hear your story as it sounds so much like my own. I lost my dad at 71 also.. He passed away from Glioblastoma (brain cancer). Much like you I always looked up to my father as he was my HERO, we brought him to live with us after his diagnosis but he only made it another 6 months. Watching his body deteriorate was hard enough but the hardest was watching him lose his mental state. My dad was a very smart man and for him not to be able to finish sentences was soul crushing. He went from being on my boat and enjoying life in September to passing away that following May. I wish i could say that it will get easier or better or whatever people want to say, but for me it will be 4 years this May and it hurts just as bad today as it did 4 years ago. So again I am very sorry to hear your story and I feel your pain. Just know that you are not alone.
God Bless and live every day like it is your last.
 
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