Thursday, March 12, 2009

"I will follow you into the dark"

The steroids helped Dad immensely - for about 3 days. That's the cruel part of the drug, they don't want to leave him on the high dose, so we get small bits of him being 'normal' - and he gets to be reminded just how sick he really is. He's begun the tapering off, and the symptoms are already coming back. Last night, he said it felt like someone had sliced his gums. And while we know the pain is phantom, it feels very real to him. And he's frustrated that there is nothing anyone can do about it.

My Dad is dying, we are on the downhill side of this. There is no way around it, no delicate way to say it. We can hope and pray for the Tarceva to work, but my gut tells me it's not going to. Dad has never mentioned the possibility that he won't survive this, and I have always assumed that he's in denial, and we're not supposed to talk about it. Until yesterday.

I took Dad out to get ice cream, and we made a pit stop at Land of Paws so I could show him the Wheaten Terrier I'd been thinking about. He enjoyed looking at the puppies, and started talking about Scottie dogs. I recalled that he'd always had a thing for that breed - given his name and all - when we played Monopoly, he was always the Scottie playing piece, and I guess he had several Scottie-themed things as a kid. As we were leaving, he said, in an off-hand way "When I'm gone, you should get a Scottie Dog and name it Apaa." I stopped in my tracks for a minute. The wind was knocked out of me. He didn't look at me, and I responded "No, we'd call it Ed."( - My father's actual first name, like my daughter, he goes by his middle name. ) He looked at me with his eyes full of tears, and said "I'd like that."


If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

1 comment:

Julie said...

This breaks my heart, Christine. My mother never talked about "after she was gone" although she did talk about getting a dog while she was going through her treatment. I think she wanted my stepfather to have a friend when she was gone.