Hi,
Over the past almost four years, this has been a wonderful site. I can't express how much the people here(all who I had never met), helped me when my mother died. This is one of those times, that I just felt I would write in and hopefully just talking about it would help.
My father has multiple schlerosis. Three weeks ago, he was diagnosed with pneumonia and sent to the hospital. He remains there now. He has been greatly weakened by the pneumonia, and is mainly bedridden, partly because he is physically so difficult to move, and the other part due to the fact that the nurses are so busy.
Since he's probably about 95 per cent deaf, his day is spent looking at the walls and having visitors come in for short visits.
There are no local nursing homes available, as the waiting lists are so long, and even though he would love to go home, we realize that his physical care can no longer be handled by our brother as it has got to be too much. Our brother has looked after our dad, since our mom's death in November 2004.
Today, I was told that the doctors have found a cyst in my dad's lungs. It may be cancer, but they have chosen not to investigate further, as it would be too invasive for our father. My brothers and sisters have said that our aim is to make our father's time as comfortable as possible.
I struggle with the guilt of feeling that our father's quality of life(boredom, inability to get around) is not being enhanced by us. We should be doing what we could to fix it. My brother told me today, that finding out if this lung mass is cancer would only cause us to worry more; best just to not know. He's probably right.
Aging, does not look good right now. Thankyou all for listenning.