Hi there,

There have been a couple of posts on this, but I thought I'd give my dad some kudo's with his own thread

In 1996, I called my dad on his birthday, October 4th, and I knew something was very wrong (I'm in RI and he was in Florida). When my mom got on the phone I started crying and begged her to take him to a doctor. My mom was a nurse and sometimes she thinks she knows all the right answers.

She was waiting to make an appointment with the Lahey clinic because the doctors in her area are bad. I knew in my gut it was bad, so I begged her to even take him to an emergency room in another county if she wanted but that he needed to go ASAP.

Dad had been having back pain for awhile. The previous January his doctor did routine blood work and found he was anemic - VERY unusual for him as he has the rarest blood type and was on emergency lists for the hospital to donate blood, which he did faithfully. The doc then tested his sed rate and it was 114. I didn't know he had this test done until 10 months later and at the time I was taking a medical assistant certificate program and in my book it said that a normal sed rate for a man was under 20. Anything over could be indicitive of rheumatoid arthritis or cancer.

The doc tested him for rheumatoid arthritis and when it came up negative, he said "you have fibromalgia". So now we are 10 months later in October and his back hurts, he's not getting any better, and he sounds like crap.

My mom finally did take him the next day to an E.R., they did an exray of his neck and he had fractures all down his c-spine. The did a bone marrow biopsy and diagnosed him with multiple myeloma (cancer of the bone marrow). He had just turned 65 and they only did bone marrow biopsy's for people under 65 (had he been properly diagosed 10 months earlier - who knows?).

They put him on a light chemo because he was pretty sick and sent him home - he went on hospice right away. We figured that was it, so we all went down to Florida to see him. My sister and I are in RI, I have a brother in Alaska, and a brother in Utah. Well the chemo started to work, so they did some radiation on his femurs because they were ready to break.

My dad lived another 4 years. It was not the life he wanted - he had only been retired 3 years when he had the diagnosis. He and my mom bought a house in a retirement community with a golf cart in the driveway and he was golfing away. Now, all he could do was watch golf on TV. My mom took very good care of him and I think that is why he lived so long - that and she bought him a dog that he adored.

We got to visit a few more times. Eventually the cancer got stronger and the chemo wouldn't work anymore, so he was back on hospice. My mom didn't want anyone to be there when he died - which pissed me off! Eventually he was in a coma for a few days and my mom called my brother in Alaska and told him to go ahead an book a flight because it would take awhile and my dad would be gone before he got there.

Well, dad hung on. Brother from Alaska is there, now brother from Utah heads down. Now I'm really mad, so I tell mom that sister and I are coming whether she likes it or not. We got there on a Tuesday at 5:00 in the afternoon. It was 2 days before my dad's 69 birthday. When I walked in it was a different person lying there. He was in a coma and breathing very hard.

So I went over and held his hand and yelled at him that Karen and I where here - his left eyebrow raised so I knew he knew we were there. I told him it was okay to go home to his mom and dad, that they were waiting there for him and that we wanted him in a pain free place.

I fell asleep and at 1:00 a.m. they woke me up because it was time. I held my dad's ice cold feet with the rest of my family around the bed when he died. Not everyone can understand this, but it was the most peaceful moment in my life. I watched the father I love let go of all the pain he was in and pass over to a better place. I didn't even cry when he initially died - I smiled. I did alot of crying later, but it was selfish crying. Selfish because I wouldn't have him with me anymore. For him I could only be happy.

This is my 6th year without my dad on father's day. Every once in a while I get sad - sad for me, not him! I talk to him all the time, I ask him to help me and watch out for me. I had a couple of signs in the beginning that he was around, but I think he passed over rather quickly.

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I try hard to think of death as a good thing - for the person who is dying. I know they are going to a better place and that makes me feel better.

Tranquility