My mom called me the other day to say that my grandpa fell really hard on the pavement outside on the way to get his feet looked at by a choropodist. My mom couldn’t lift him up so she had to run to a neighbour to get help. She banged on the door for help and the poor guy was in his boxers and ran across the street to help without any shoes on!

After picking him up my mom thanked him and he was going to help him into the house but my mom said it was okay and they were going to the doctor so he helped him in the car before going back to his house.

My mom wanted to take him to the doctor but the stubborn old goat refused saying he was okay which is really annoying but in sure he had his reasons *uuuuuff* so now he’s the proud owner of very very bruised knees and thankfully my mom was there and took the main brunt of the fall by standing infront and catching the full force, but now she’s hurting!

*Sigh*

I just came back from his house, I was there for the weekend again and he’s going downhill really really fast. I’ve kinda stopped blogging so much about it cause it’s really hard to deal with, especially since I’m really close to him and I’m watching him waste away.

He’s hardly eating because he gets full, he gets nose bleeds all the time, his legs are swollen and covered in blisters which burst and we’re scared will get infected, he nearly choked last night while coughing and ended up vomiting, his back is killing him, he can hardly walk, his memory is really bad now, and he’s in pain.

I seriously admire him with everything he’s going through and still has a smile on his face

I don’t want to lose him

The phone rang, my grandfather picked it up
“Hello?”
The phone was still ringing
I looked over and he was talking into a tissue box wondering why no one was answering him
He looked and it finally clicked that it was a tissue box (after a lot of confusion)
He finally picked up the house phone and said “Hello?”
They hung up
*sigh*

I’m pretty much going nuts the past few days due to my grandfather, I’m around him 24/7 and as much as I love him to pieces, it’s seriously getting to me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy being around him, it’s the fact that his memory is fading and he’s getting worse by the day. It’s been nearly 3 weeks since I’ve looked after him alone (without help!), my aunts who are seriously pissing the hell outta me either come once or twice a week and make me feel like shit (my aunts are another blog post though!). In those 3 weeks, I’ve only had around 4 hours break away from everything, I desperately need a whole weekend away to rest, have some ME time and see my friends. I feel evil for even wanting some ME time but it’s seriously hard look after someone on your own when they are really ill. Thank god my mom is back next week, she can take the burden off me a little bit!

Here is what I’m currently coping with:

I was on the phone to my grandfather’s siter updating her on his condition, my grandfather was sleeping on the sofa, after I closed the phone I heard running water… I ran to the kitchen to find the sink overflowing and water everywhere. My grandfather forgot he had the tap running, so I had to clean all that up.

At the end of last week, my grandfather was screaming at 7am. I rush out of bed to find him in the bathroom shouting that the toilet is blocked. My grandfather has to wear sanitary pads (male versions of the female ones) and he put it down the toilet by mistake. So at 7am I had to try unblock the toilet, get the pad out of the toilet using my hands (thank god for gloves) and keep throwing water down the toilet to try flush up any blockages. 20 minutes later it was working

Yesterday, my grandfather took an overdose of his medication. He is supposed to take 3 pills in the morning, 4 throughout the day and 1 just before bedtime. In the morning, he ended up taking 4 of 1 pill along with the other 2. He forgot that he took them just minutes before. Luckily my aunt was over at the time and she called the doctor for advice as my grandfather was getting really scared. Thank god that he was okay and didn’t cause any damage!

Last week, my grandfather’s car wouldn’t start. He doesn’t drive anymore but he runs the engine daily to ensure it starts and works. My grandfather’s car has been in and out of the garage for various problems which resulted in my grandfather thinking that unscrewing the car battery after every use and then reconnecting it before use is a good thing. Anyway, his car would not start last week so he ended up using jump cables and this box thing he has. The result? he ended up putting the cable the wrong way around and now the car will not start at all. This morning to attempted to start the car again and now you don’t even hear the engine attempting to start, all you hear is crunching noise. When I told him to stop trying and to call the road side maintence people (The AA) he told me “arrgh just go away and leave me alone”, so I did. I went back to bed and left him to his own stubborn ways.

When you talk to him, he doesn’t register what you’re saying. He wears a hearing aid but even with that he doesn’t hear you. He thinks you are whispering when infact I’m nearly shouting at the top of my lungs. My mom called the other day saying she’ll be back here on the 17th instead of the 14th and when I replayed that information to my grandfather, I had to repeat it 5 times, slowly… like I was talking to a kid or someone that didn’t speak a word of english e.g. Muuuuuum *pause* saaaaaaaays *pause* thaaaat *pause* ssshhhhhe *pause* willlllll……

There are tons more examples of things I’m going nuts with, but I guess you all get the jist of it. He gets confused with everything that goes on around him, has trouble reading the time and repeats himself all the time, starts sentences without finishing them, or comes away with things that don’t make sense at all.

Just as I’m typing this, he just woke up out of his many sofa naps and says oh it’s 8pm already? How long have I been asleep for? I say “no it’s only 12:40″ he goes “is neighbours on yet” (australian soap opera) and I’m like “no it’s not 1:40 yet, remember” then he says “what about the news” and I say “no that’s on at 1pm”. Then he rubs his eyes and asks “what’s the time?”.

I know he can’t help it, but I just feel bad that I’m going nuts, but you seriously don’t understand how hard it is to look after someone who is nearly 82, memory is fading, can hardly walk and you’re on your own.

He held his head in his hands, while crying he said “I’m just so so tired”

It was then I knew that no matter how much I try to make him smile, no matter how much I try to act normal around him, cook for him, clean his house, wash his clothes, give him his medication and help him up from his chair, I’m still completely helpless & it hurts.

I wish I could rewind the clock, but life isn’t as simple as that. I love him to pieces, I’ve stopped my life, struggling to do my masters thesis with everything going on, put my plans on hold, moved in with him to look after him, but I do not regret that, I regret the day he was diagnosed with cancer.

Tell me how you are supposed to stay strong when you’ve been given the worst news possible? When the consultant took my mom & I into a room and broke the news to us, we couldn’t help but cry even though we were trying to stay (or pretend to be) strong. Even though on Monday they told us that he possibly does have cancer, it didn’t really hit me until today when it was confirmed.

A CT Scan confirmed that he has a large tumor in his liver, it is too big to remove thus in-operable. However, you cannot get liver cancer, basically it had to start from somewhere then attack itself to the liver. They think that it started in the bowel/pancreas because of other symptoms he has especially the bowel/digestion problems. Tonight he is getting an endoscopy to determine where the cancer has originated from and what stage he is in.

We were told he only has weeks to live

& no I’m not okay

It’s breaking my heart seeing my grandfather in pain, he hasn’t ate since 8pm on Sunday night because he was told he was getting tests done on Monday. It’s now 11:20pm on Tuesday and he still hasn’t been allowed any food and he still hasn’t been taken for his CT and MRI Scan as there is a huge backlog of patients. When he was first admitted he was Nil by Mouth, now he’s Free Fluid but poor thing he’s starving and all he can do is just wait!

My mom arrived this afternoon and is pissed at the fact that they told him he may have a potentially severe form of cancer and are leaving him waiting and waiting without telling him (or us!) anything, not to mention not allowing him to eat even though he won’t be seen tonight.

My grandfather’s skin is really yellow, he’s on a saline drip and to make things worse, he had a bathroom accident during visiting hours. For a long time, when he needs the bathroom he basically NEEDS TO GO ASAP and 2 weeks ago while out he ended up peeing himself because he didn’t make the bathroom in time, then a few days later blood started appearing in his stool. Today at the hospital, he needed the bathroom, but because of the saline drip he couldn’t get to the bathroom in time and started panicking and getting really upset because he peed himself infront of us and then he ended up having diarrhea at the same time, he couldn’t help it but he still got really upset like he was about to cry. I think the hardest bit for him was the fact that we were there and he was helpless. Of course we were telling him it’s okay don’t worry and we called the nurses to come help clean him up and I handed over some clean boxer shorts and PJ’s. A few hours later, it happened again.

I hate the feeling of being helpless, but what hurts the most if the not knowing. We still don’t know 100% if he does have Pancreatic Cancer and now another doctor is saying that they think his liver has been affected as well. My aunt is a Senior ER Nurse and she told me straight that she doesn’t think he will get allowed out of hospital and doesn’t think he’ll make his 82nd Birthday on June 20th.

I really hope she’s wrong *sigh*

Note: Thank you for all your comments, smses, facebook messages and emails. It means alot & sorry I haven’t replied to them all *hugs*

I was going to blog more photos from my 3 week stay in Paris, but things have taken a turn for the worse. This morning, my grandfather was admitted into hospital.

Doctors have found a large tumor in his abdomen and have concluded that it’s Pancreatic Cancer. He’s getting an MRI scan tomorrow morning to determine the density of the tumor and to see if 100% it is.

His skin and eyes have turned yellow and he’s lost a shit load of weight since I last saw him before I went to Paris. I’m really worried but won’t know more until tomorrow afternoon

Mom is flying in from Paris tomorrow afternoon… enshalla it’s not cancer but all the signs are there and I’m scared to lose him, especially it being less than a year since his sister died of cancer as well.

It’s one thing being really ill, but another being really ill and all alone.

Yes beeble, I’m ill again (I think my blog is over populated with my health posts, shoot me now!)

It all started with an ear infection, then my throat became dry and things were hard to swallow, then I got migranes, then my eyes became heavy and my stomach hurt, then my nose started becoming a water fall, then suddenly it was hard to breathe, and now I’m coughing up green mucus from my chest.

& I’ve just ran out of medication (well I have 6 panadol pills left, but they are crap)

I called my brother and asked him if he could come to my apartment to take me to get more medication and he said no, he doesn’t wanna drive 30 minutes into the city centre for his little ill sister!

My mom calls me every few hours to check up on me, demanding I go back to the doctor as I had broncitus before and I probably have it again. I went to the doctor at the start of the week and all he told me was to rest and drink lots of fluids… I have but I just keep getting worse. I can’t even sleep properly and end up sleeping sat up on bed for a few hours then wake up in a coughing fit before passing out again.

I called the doctors near my grandfathers house and booked an appointment for Monday so I hope he gives me some anti-biotics or something to numb the pain, it’s a bitch to try and breathe… I should get an oxygen mask or something!

& why is it that I always pick up all the frikin bugs that come along?