7:50am June 14, 2014

Everything is exactly how my gut tells me it REALLY has been going.

Which is, my father’s been admitted to the hospital, and everything is getting worse so fast that the “he may have three months to live” estimate is completely out of whack, it’s more like he may have a week to live, if that.  I already knew that – I am pretty sure I told my brother when I talked to him, I know I’ve been telling everyone I talk to in person, I’ve been telling everyone this.  But I only just heard it from my mom herself.  I’ll be lucky if I get a chance to Skype with him before he dies, or see him in any way at all, so the last conversation I have with him may be some really difficult phone conversation.  (By really difficult I don’t just mean because he’s dying, I mean because it’s incredibly difficult for me to use a telephone with the equipment I have.  Of course, I will do anything to talk to him at this point.  But to have our possible last conversation be something where we’re struggling to understand what each other is saying, is horrible beyond description.)

I knew though… the moment I heard how things were really going, I knew we didn’t have three months, certainly not even three weeks unless they’re able to change something major.  Right now they don’t even know WTF is wrong with him or where the tumor is, but it’s fucking up his ability to breathe, and there was all this swelling they thought was fluid they could take out, but it’s not fluid, so they can’t relieve the pressure on his lungs, and FUCK THIS, fuck everything.  And all my friends had been telling me they saw death hanging around, and whenever I actually sleep I have the same type of dreams I have when death is around me, only it’s not around me, it’s around my father, and I may not have a chance to talk to him for real, and I’m terrified of him dying afraid.

I did sleep all night, which must’ve made a difference but now I barely feel like anything has changed, because I’m fucking terrified.  I knew something was very wrong when my mom said my father couldn’t eat and was having trouble breathing – that’s not “three months to live” stuff.  FUCK.  I should’ve paid attention to death, I know what death looks like when it hangs around someone, but why would I even be looking for death around my father when it’s my mother who was just in the ICU, that’s what threw me.  But there’s nothing I could’ve done if I did know.  Two friends tell me they were worried about a family member of mine about three days before I found out anything.  Which is roughly the time period I started feeling weird about things, too, but weird feelings are one thing and this is…. fuck.

Anyway when it gets later I’ll be calling him, of course.  It’s the middle of the night in California right now.  And what I have to do, now, is make everything about him.  Not about what could have been, but about what things can be from here on out, because that’s all we’ve got, and we may not have much of it from the sound of it.  I want to see if I can make this easier for him in any possible way.  I don’t want him dying scared.  If he has to die so soon, which who knows, we don’t even know what he’s facing, but if he has to, hopefully he doesn’t at least have to die scared.

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