My dad had leukemia for 11 years and I'll admit that the last year or two were a definite struggle. There were times when we didn't even know if he would survive the night. He would catch pneumonia from a simple cold my mom or I had. One day he would be totally fine and the next day he would be in the ICU. Towards the end of his disease, the cancer had spread throughout his entire body and you could see the lymph nodes sticking out of his neck and his stomach. He was nothing but skin and bones - my father was once a heavy set man. Because of his age and the progession of his cancer, he had to stop taking chemotherapy altogether, which I didn't find out until shortly before his death.
His doctor told us he had two weeks to live and two days later I received a call at work from my mother, in hysterics, saying that he was gone.
My father lived with one of the toughest forms of cancer for more than ten years. Meanwhile, I get to see films like The Last Song with a shitty actress and horrible role model Miley Cyrus, putting on a "meh" worthy performance. **Spoiler** At one point, a doctor tells Cyrus that her father chose to receive lower dosages of medication so that he could "really be here" with his children. That does not happen in real life. When you have the opportunity to go into remission, you take it. Even if it means throwing up a lot, sleeping a lot or acting like superman (one of the effects is that you are filled with A LOT of energy and feel like you can do anything). When my father was still working for Sears in the stockrooms, there were days when he was still able to lift televisions in and out of peoples cars. And there were also days when he could not get out of the bed to save his life. So whenever I see films where a courageous character chooses NOT to take chemotherapy or radiation, I get so angry because I think of my father and how if he was a younger person, he would've taken any chances he could of surviving this disease.
What also upsets me about films that have cancer in them, is how research doesn't seem to always get done properly. I liked the movie Step Mom a lot but I always get annoyed when the doctor tells Susan Sarandon that her hair may or may not fall out. The reason why a person's hair falls out is because of the type of chemotherapy the person is on, not just because it "varies from person to person."
The thing about my dad was that no matter how sick he was feeling, he always made sure he was a part of my life. He'd force himself to get out of bed, put on his shoes and jacket and he'd drive me to school. Looking back, in both high school and college I learned to appreciate my drives to school or home with my dad. We would talk about the newspaper, my mom, my friends, just anything. I think my father knew he was going to die and what killed him was the fact that he knew we would survive without him.
After he died, I was in total denial of it all. I didn't cry very much at his wake but basically had a breakdown in a church at his funeral. I didn't want to talk about it. I just wanted to sleep. Constantly. I could sleep for 12 hours and still feel tired. I felt responsible for his death even though it was not my fault. I felt guilty that he died alone in a nursing home. I felt angry that nobody was there with him when he died and at one point, blamed my mother for putting him in the nursing home and not getting him into a proper rehabilitation program where he would be forced to walk and use his legs.
The friends that I had at the time pretty much gave up on me. They were all talking about me behind my back, saying that I needed to be on medication or needed to see a therapist. Only one of my friends had lost his father and the rest of them had NO idea what it felt like to lose a parent so their natural reaction was to call me crazy. I felt betrayed but at the same time, I knew that I was losing their friendships because of how I was acting. The only friend who really stood by me was Miguel and as time passed, I started growing really close to Juan because I found that he was the type of person who didn't need to fill the air with bullshit words. He was there when you needed him and didn't always need to add his input. When we were all on a school trip in Washington D.C., Juan was the only person who wasn't judging me. Meanwhile, my "real" friends were avoiding me and talking crap about me. Our friendships have never quite recovered and some of them still don't understand what I went through and I guess I still have anger towards them for that.
Miguel was the only person who stood by me and was willing to be completely honest about my attitude, the changes I made in my life and what I went through. He was basically the only person who told me that my father's death had helped me grow while everyone else was saying that I was the same old person, just angrier.
I always think of how much easier my life would be if my dad was still alive. My parents would probably travel a lot and my mom would get off my case about how much time I spend outside of the house. He was always in my corner, telling her to leave me alone and let me live my life.
I suppose the reason why my dad's death hit me so hard was because he was my best friend. We got along really great and were extremely close. I also never really got any closure. The day he died, I had planned on going over to the nursing home to have a goodbye talk with him and tell him everything I planned to do with my life. I had stayed up really late rehearsing the whole thing and cried myself to sleep because I knew he didn't have long.
The biggest lesson I learned from his passing was to cherish people. Cherish everyone in your life, even if they drive you crazy sometimes.
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