Well, it does really look like I may have to get my thoughts down in very much reverse chronological order.
I am sat next to dad as I type this. He is no longer really in this world, but I don’t want him to die alone or with strangers. So here I sit. Arguably, we are more strangers to him than the people who have looked after him day after day for the last seven months. They assure us that he is calmer when we are here, but I think it’s possible they’re saying that to comfort us, that’s OK. I can understand it.
Dad was put on a syringe driver the night before last. He can no longer take fluid or food in any form, so all they can do is fire up that driver and make him comfortable with morphine. It seems to have worked, he was very distressed in the hours before the syringe was inserted. Now he just lays there with eyes half-open, breathing steadily, snoring occasionally. No-one wants to tell us how long it will take him to die, because no one person is the same. Dehydration is not ideal, but as we are bound by law we cannot help him to go in peace.
Dad would hate this, he would not want it for himself or for us.
He would probably find it amusing that I’m typing away while I’m sat here. He wanted to learn how to use a computer, so we bought him a laptop for his 70th birthday. That was almost five years ago (his birthday is a week this Sunday)… but because his eyesight failed him, he never got to do much more than to play a few levels of Plants vs Zombies and look at some photographs of the dogs.
My life has been consumed with first his cancer, then his dementia, and all that entails. It’s going to seem very quiet soon.