Morph3ous's Weblog

I wrote about my Grandpa and his fight againt Merkel Cell Carcinoma in this post. The battle appears to be a losing one. He is now back at home in hospice care. This means that his life expectancy may be less than two weeks.

In the last few weeks he has refused chemotherapy, and it seems as if he is waiting to die. I feel as if he has given up. There have been tensions in the family lately, of which he played a key part, but despite all that it will be sad to see him go. There is no question in my mind that he will die soon. The idea saddens me to no end, but such is life.

He is now very thin. He has a feeding tube and a pump that measures out the proper amount of nutrition. The bed in his house is surrounded by machinery. An oxygen machine in the corner allows him to breathe easily. He says that he is not suffering. I hope that he is telling the truth.

Everyone has a good and a bad side. He is no exception. I choose to try to think of and preserve the memory of his good side while de-emphasizing (but not blocking) his bad side. I learned an awful lot from him. The time value of money was one thing that he taught me at an early age. When I went to business school at the Univeristy of Florida I already had a firm grasp on the idea.

In the last few years we used to eat all the time at Scotty’s Landing. I will always have fond memories of those times. We would sit out by the water, watch the sailboats and parasailers, and talk about almost anything.

We were really close. The problem is that he is no longer here. My Grandpa is still alive, but he is on his last legs. He is hallucinating, and just today mentioned that he saw the ghost of a beautiful woman as he stared at the white ceiling. When he was in the hospital earlier he mentioned that he was hallucinating. I think I remember him saying that he saw my grandmother standing in front of him with a basket of corn. My memory may be off as this has been a traumatic event.

I plan on visiting him again tomorrow, despite all the pain that seeing him in this condition causes me. Anything to make him more comfortable as he nears the end of his life. He has lived 87 years. His mind was there till close to the end. He remained sharp, and quick enough on his feet. He even continued to study at the IRP at the University of Miami. I think that was one of the things that allowed him to last this long. He had a thirst for knowlege, and was always trying to learn something new.

Now he is reduced to staying in a bed. He can not even hold a phone up for himself. This is especially hard to see considering how independent he has always been. As I was holding up the phone to his ear so that he could talk to my uncle, he kept trying to hold it up. His hand would spasm and then drop, but he tried. I kept the phone to his ear as he did seem to want to talk. To see him trying to be independent to the end is heartbreaking, especially since he is way too weak.

I really hope that he is not suffering.