Despite his bleak prognosis, Dad remained remarkably well for much of his illness. He continued doing many of the things he loved \u2013 friends would tell of seeing him whizz through town on his bike just weeks after brain surgery. He and my mum travelled around Europe between chemotherapy cycles, always with trips and plans with friends to look forward to.<\/p>\n
He faced life with relentless determination and optimism. He didn\u2019t complain about the constant hospital trips, the sickness he experienced from treatment, or the little bald patch he had where the radiotherapy had stopped his hair from growing.<\/p>\n
He wanted to keep on living \u2013 and so that is the approach we silently took as a family.<\/p>\n
Life carried on, and for the next few years we lived between cycles of scans, chemotherapy and operations.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until April 2021, when I was visiting from university for Dad\u2019s 60th birthday, two and a half years after his diagnosis, that it became clear how his health had begun to deteriorate.<\/p>\n
Worsening condition<\/p>\n
As the tumour spread, his language suffered, and his mobility worsened.<\/p>\n
When I finished university and moved home that June, Dad was unrecognisable. His once olive-brown skin was sallow and pale, and his face was puffy from steroids. I felt scared. I couldn\u2019t reconcile the man in front of me with the father I knew.<\/p>\n
By then, Dad was reliant on Mum for most of his care. Our days revolved around hospital appointments, lifting him in and out of bed, and helping him eat. There was no space to plan for the future \u2013 it was survival.<\/p>\n
As the tumour progressed, his behaviour and communication became increasingly strained. Understandably frustrated, trapped in a body that no longer did what he asked, he could become angry.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t you see I\u2019m dying?\u201d he would shout.<\/p>\n
By then, it was too late to have the balanced, important conversations we had avoided for so long.<\/p>\n
After developing a chest infection, he was taken into hospital. We stood at the front door and watched the ambulance pull away, unaware it would be the last time he would leave our home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite his bleak prognosis, Dad remained remarkably well for much of his illness. He continued doing many of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[8669,847,2864,31112,59,5686,102,655,159742,2415,5438,58919,56,54,55,157732],"class_list":["post-445130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-brain-tumours","tag-cancer","tag-family","tag-funerals","tag-gb","tag-grief","tag-health","tag-lifestyle","tag-other-lifestyle","tag-relationships","tag-standard","tag-top-story","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}