Childhood Innocence
Not funny, not clever, just fucking tragic.

My father died of cancer when I was 11. He'd had skin cancer some years before and had it removed (all the time I knew him he had a big scar on his face from the skin graft). About a year before his death he went to the doctor to say he'd got that "funny feeling" and thought the cancer might be back again.

Fucking doctor didn't believe him.

My father ended up with cancer nodes behind his knees, from something that started near his face. If I ever see that cunting doctor again I will make him eat his own balls.

We kept him (my father, not the doctor) at home as he slowly declined. After a while, he became bedridden. Then he had to have a frame to keep the blankets off as he was in so much pain he couldn't stand the weight. He went through a box of morphine a day and was still in excruciating pain much of the time.

Eventually he couldn't speak and couldn't chew. I'd bought my mother a seive (one of those things you use to sift flour) that Christmas and she wore a hole in it mashing up veggies for dad to digest, as that was about as much as he could stomach.

Except he couldn't stomach it - he threw it up regularly. At this point he was too weak to sit up, so someone would have to help him sit up to throw up into the bucket kept beside his bed. He was also too weak to yell, or even talk most of the time, so he would signal his need to vomit by grunting.

This meant that someone had to be in the room with him at all times, otherwise there was a real risk he would pull a Hendrix and drown in his own vomit.

Can you see where this is going?

My brother (13) and I (11) would have to take shifts sitting alone with my dying vegetable of a father in case he had to throw up. Thankfully we weren't expected to help him sit up to do so but had to go and get my Mum.

(This is making me so angry my hands are shaking - I've had to walk away from the keyboard several times just to get this out. It's not cathartic - it's just making me fucking angry.)

I remember the morning my mother came in to my room to tell me he had died - I was relieved. I remember early on in my father's illness - before my mother told us he was going to die - seeing one of my school chums being picked up and hugged by her dad and thinking I was never going to get to do that again.

Fucksocks. Too early to drink.

Length? About 6 to 8 months of pain and humility (him, not me).
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 11:44, 11 replies)

sorry to hear it, dude
Well-told yarn, though so 'click'.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 11:49, closed)

Bloody hell
Don't realy know what to say to that, apart from sorry to hear about it - and is there any way you could have got the doctor struck off?
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 11:49, closed)

Tragic.
I dont know how you coped with that man. Big clicks to you.
Its stories like this that justify euthanasia.
(Miggyman, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 11:51, closed)

The doctor
At risk of shooting from the hip - it's not obvious to me that the doctor was at fault. Sometimes things get missed. Sometimes there's not even anything to see.

What happened is unfortunate, and noone'd deny that. Chances are, that there's nothing more to it than misfortune, though.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 11:54, closed)

@Enzyme
It's a fair point, but you don't fuck with cancer. If someone says they think there's something wrong, the doctor needs to get it checked out straight away. No ifs, ands or buts.

A few years back I went into a bulk billing clinic in Melbourne to get a couple of moles checked out. The doctor cut them out there and then, no questions asked.
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 11:58, closed)

Miscommunication
Given Enzyme's reply it's struck me that the direction of my anger may be misconstrued as being wholly at the doctor who failed to act. While I am angry at him, the bulk of my anger is directed at the situation, not at any individual.
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 12:01, closed)

It's reasonable...
The doctor provides a decent focus for anger. Maybe he was negligent; maybe he made a non-negligent mistake - the sort of mistake that is not blameable, that is; maybe something else happened.

Bad outcomes don't imply fault. Sometimes people're just unlucky.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 12:07, closed)

@Enzyme
Cut the fucking preaching, huh? It's my tale of woe, not yours.
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 12:11, closed)

Not preaching...
... just commenting.

Knew I shouldn't've responded...

:)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 12:16, closed)

Sorry, Enzyme
Rabid attacks are not generally my style, even if I do try to inject some humour into them.
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 12:21, closed)

If this was an image
It'd win this weeks image challenge.

*sads*
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 12:23, closed)