Ernya.com

This might be a little jumbled since I'm sort of a mess right now.

I just wanted to make a sort of memorial post for my father. He passed this morning at 4:45 AM, EST after about six months of battling liver/bile duct cancer.

At first, the doctors thought it was the gal bladder, so they removed his gal bladder. He then went back to the hospital after several more days of discomfort, and they said he had cancer in August. This was devastating news and I cried a lot. My mom did, too.

Over the next several months, he went through chemotherapy in the hopes that it would shrink the tumor enough to be able to have it surgically removed. In the meantime, he had several operations to put in stints, since the tumor was blocking his bile. I'm not very familiar with the inner workings of a human, but I never realized how important bile actually is. Anyway, the stints kept the bile flowing through the ducts and liver so that my father wouldn't be poisoned from the inside. These procedures really killed off his morale little by little.

Eventually, it got to the point where the doctors said no, they could not operate on the tumor, but they could give him more permanent stints to allow him a more normal-ish life before shit really hit the fan. He went into the hospital and he almost died on the operating table as they tried to remove the previous stints. They said the tumor had somehow wrapped around some of the tubes and it had begun bleeding, so they aborted the operation as soon as possible.

The next day, I went to go see my father. He was such a wreck. He was still coming out of the anesthesia, something that would take a healthy person mere hours to come out of; it had been over 12 hours and it would be another few days until the effects completely wore off. I sobbed my eyes out; I didn't want to see my strong father wrapped in sheets, completely confused, not knowing what year it was. But he did know the answer to one question: Who's the president? "Obama. >" Haha, he used to blame me for Obama getting elected.

That was also the week my father chose to go into hospice care. Well, I guess more or less it wasn't a decision so much as the fact that they were no more options. The hospital bed arrived; my father specifically said he wanted to die with the remote in his hand, the TV on, surrounded by the cats and the family and in the comfort of his own home. My mother cried and I helped her dress the bed for my father. He was still joking around at this point, smiling and checking out the bed. He's the strongest man I've ever known. If I were in his situation, I would have been sobbing my eyes out.

The days progressed; last Thursday was the last time I could speak to him. I had come home from school, started taking care of him. "Hey, Sam, can you get me some water?" "Sure, dad."

The next day, my parents woke up. My father couldn't even get out of their bedroom, so my mother helped me into his hospital bed in the living room, and that's the last time he ever walked. Of course, as these things progress, some degrading things may happen, so I'll skip over the details. For those of you who have older parents, you may understand what I mean and how sad this can truly be.

The past 48 hours, my father had been pretty much unconscious. They were giving him doses of morphine and drugs that I've never even heard of on an hourly basis to keep him sedated, calm and out of pain. His breathing was ragged but regular and we all knew the end was extremely close.

This morning, my mother woke me up at about 5 and told me my father had passed minutes ago, to come say my goodbyes and give him a kiss. Of course, I've been an emotional wreck, so looking at my father is killing me on the inside. It's now almost 9:30 AM and the family is here, saying their goodbyes, chatting with eachother and we're waiting for the funeral director to arrive and take my father's body away.

My father was an amazing man. He built a swingset for my sister and I when we were children. He tacked on a third swing when my brother was born and he built us a treehouse. He built a barn a few hundred feet from the house where he stored all his "toys"; his dump truck, tractor, a boat when we had one, etc. He chopped wood every summer and kept the house warm in the winter. He used to dress my sister and I in frilly clothes when we were younger, put our hair in pigtails, took us to the mall, took us everywhere he could. He went with my brother to all of his Boy Scouting adventures. In fact, the month before he was diagnosed, he was supposed to have gone with my brother to Florida to go diving with the boy scouts, but he wasn't feeling well at that point. He took an interest in everything we did, whether it was silly or actually meaningful. When I said I wanted to become a graphic designer, he never batted an eye, he only told me to go for it. Go for whatever I wanted to achieve in life. As long as I "go to school, go to college, and get a good job", he told me to do what I wanted to do. He was the best father I could have asked for; supportive in everything, giving advice when I asked for it, he even would defend me from my mother, who has always been a judgmental woman. He loved children and animals and it was no secret to anyone.

I wish I could show everyone how amazing my father was, how honored I am to have his genetics in my blood, and how proud I am of him to have fought through this disease and still be able to laugh and joke through most of the journey. I can't imagine the thoughts going through his head through this entire ordeal, but I know he was one in million to have gone through this with the strength that he did.

He loved all of us so much and we loved him more than anything. He was one of the most important people in my life and this is a serious blow to my family and I. We're going to miss him more than anything.

Rest in peace, Old Man. I'll love you forever and always. ♥