I watched my mom die of Lung Cancer at 49. It sounds much like White Man watching his father die, her cancer had spread into her bones and brain. I found out she had cancer a week to the day before she died. When they found out she had cancer, she smoked two more cigarettes, and never went home again.
This was over 8 years ago. I still smoke cigarettes. It's stupid, and I would recommend anyone here my story before starting. Here's hoping I quit before it's too late.
Guess I may as well spill the beans. It's been nearly a year and I should be able to talk about this now.
Last year, October 7th, doctors found a tumor on the back of my dad's right lung. They weren't sure if it was cancerous. They promptly (within several days) removed it, being aware of his smoking habit and such. During a follow-up a week or so later, it had grown back. Cancer was fairly obvious now, and the speed at which the tumor had regrown suggested the frightening possibility of metastasization.
And metastasize it did. During the week between the tumor removal and the check-up, it had spread to his bones, and potentially his brain. At this point, survival was an impossibility. It was all about making sure he had a comfortable death. If you ask me, that's also a certain impossibility. It was around this time that I remember walking past my dad's room at night. He was crying like a frustrated adolescent, and he just kept saying "I don't want to die." Those aren't very encouraging words to hear from your father. I've always hoped that living a full life would prepare one for death.
A few days later it was confirmed that the cancer had indeed spread to his brain. I asked my own neurologist (I'll get into why I was regularly seeing one of them later) what this meant, and he effectively said that I'd watch my father go insane over the course of a few weeks, or worse, a few days. My mom opted to try an experimental sort of radiation therapy, gamma knife, to try and prolong my father's life and sanity. The surgery was considered elective by insurance, since it's effectiveness (for this purpose) was unproven. It pretty much bankrupted my family, and killed any chance I had of returning to school with familial help.
The surgery was a bust, and did more harm than good. The procedure, which involved firing a hot radiation beam through my dad's brain was terrifying to my dad. The anticipation of getting those treatments definitely brought his mental downfall on faster.
Meanwhile, all this stress was causing me to have horribly migraine attacks, and I was having seizures, bad ones, on a weekly basis. I had to go into therapy myself. Being uninsured, this didn't help my families finances. My mom was about to collapse herself; only the thought of her being the only person able to take care of my dad kept her going.
Eventually, December came. December 2003 will always be the worst month of my life. My dad was stone crazy. I watched it myself. He went from zero to alzheimer's in the span of 2 weeks. He was convinced the meds my mom and I would give him were poison, and that we were trying to slow kill him for his money (he had none). He'd routinely (nightly) try to get out of his hospital bed (in the living room of our house -- we opted to let him die in the comfort of his on home) and escape the house. My mom and I, being the only 2 people in the house, had to alternate nights staying up until dawn to make sure he didn't get out. Some nights, I'd catch him crying in bed, saying he had to get home to see my mom. He didn't even know where he was. One night, he smashed up the living room with his cane. We couldn't stop him. At this point he weighed less than a hundred pounds, too.
The last day of his life, well, apparently he spent the morning talking to his sister, who'd been dead for about 10 years. Then he had a very lucid conversation with my mom. She wrote it down and I have a copy here on my computer. I'm not going to look it up because I'll bust up. Basically my dad asked if he was dying, and my mom had to tell him the truth. I'm busting up anyway. He never stopped smoking throughout this, maybe the saddest part of all.
Maybe later I'll continue this. I doubt anyone will even read this far. I hope at least somebody does.
Long story short -- Smokers, lung cancer by far isn't the worst thing that could happen to you.
