Firstly excuse the ramblings. It's been a day and a half, and I am trying to process it all.
My Dad, whom I haven't seen for about two years, and haven't really spoken to much in that time either, died this morning. He was 70.
He hadn't been well for a while, being a typical doctorphobic man only went to this he doctor in September because a) his wife insisted and b) he could hardly breathe..., he had managed to turn a cold into a nasty form of pneumonia. He spent most of September and half of October in hospital, culminating in an air ambulance trip to Aberdeen. After three days they sent him home on the basis that he was responding well to the treatment and that he should be well on the mend.
Monday morning started with an ambulance to take him to intensive care as he could barely breathe unaided, and by Monday evening he was back in the air ambulance on his way back to Aberdeen. He was given a Brochoscopy yesterday lunchtime and was stable pending the results.
Fortunately I had called the hospital and had been able to speak to him, albeit briefly. I thought he sounded bad when I spoke to him when he first went in September, but he was clearly alot worse.
I spoke to my stepmother yesterday afternoon and she confirmed that it was a question of waiting for the results before deciding a course of treatment as there was clearly summat else going in beneath the pneumonia and that she would keep us informed.
I feared the worst when I missed a call from her before 6 am, and when I returned it, she had been calling to say that the hospital had rung telling her to prepare for the worst. Which happened at about 7:30.
The news has left me numb. My brother and I never had a particularly good relationship with our Dad... he never really rose to the job of parenthood, but he wasn't a bad father in the grand scheme of things. My brother seems to be taking it in a similar vane to me... It is what it is and no amount of screaming or arm waving will change anything, and the end was ultimately mercifully quick.
My stepmother is trying to put a brave face on things, but I know she is devastated. As is my mother, who has spent most of the afternoon dredging through all sorts of grievances, as she does whenever Dad's name is mentioned. They've been divorced nigh on 32 years...
The thing I am really struggling with though is that had I known what today would bring, I would have called my brother yesterday evening and suggested that he called, but hadn't as it was his birthday and I knew he was out for dinner. He knew Dad was back in hospital though, and like me was merely waiting for a progress report. It bothers me because when my Gran died in 2005, I had been able to visit her in hospital but she died the morning my brother was going to see her.
I just hope that he wasn't alone in the end as the earliest that we might have been able to get there would have been this morning, and that would have been too late, not that there was anything to be done.
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Topic: Mixed emotions. (Read 3445 times)