40) Panic! 8th July 2026 The final countdown

Dad's Bedroom. There are 3 bedrooms in his house, and 2 bathrooms, a kitchen,  a study, a shed. a garage, a greenhouse and a huge living room... ALL like this.

Before I move on to today's post the picture above is what I looked at yesterday. That is I looked at it then shut the door. It is his bedroom, where he slept, every night. Much as I don't think he will ever be able to live there again, there is still the little distant niggly gremlin in my head 'What IF he wants to see his house for the last time... and I've thrown something important out?'  I wasn't able to make a dent. I half think he is so close but Mr What IF keeps keeps creeping in. I left it as it was and tried to make a dent in the living room.

The company I work for occasionally take all of it's staff out for a team building meal out at a local pub and Wednesday 8th July we were all out when I got a call from the hospital. I went outside to take it. The man introduced himself as the doctor who'd been looking after dad. He went on to say he had been on holiday for the past week and since he'd come back, he was shocked at the rapid deterioration he'd noticed in him. He wanted to know when I last visited. I told him 3 days before. He asked had I noticed - I had.  Having finally got dad's doctor on the phone I was reluctant to let him go. I said I would come to the ward right away to speak with him.

I left my team meal, telling my colleague who had come outside for a cigarette, what had happened so she could alert the others. It was a cursedly hot day and I opened both car doors to cool the car down before I got in. I then drove off with my rear car door open. I sure am losing the plot.

After I safely got to the hospital, I tried to speak to the doctor. He stepped out from the desk he was at and we stood in the middle of the corridor, doing some kind of weird waltz, as nurses and staff and patients and the coffee lady and all-sorts rushed past in all directions - 'scuse me, sorry, sorry, can I just, sorry, just a minute', while he told me he thought dad only had weeks to go, not months and they were going to transition to palliative care and put dad on a morphine drip to manage his pain. The doctor was softly spoken and also had a foreign accent which I struggled to understand. The most difficult conversation, in what appeared to be the middle of the medical equivalent of the M25.

I went to see dad after the conversation with the doctor, he wasn't really there in mind. He was gripping the side bars of the bed and clearly in pain. He had the adult nappy thing they had put on him since he had been admitted, and which I'd assumed was for emergency leakage. He was trying to get out of bed over the side bars and I wasn't sure I could stop him, a dreadful smell appeared so I asked the nurse if we could help him get to the toilet. She looked at me and said 'Oh no - he isn't allowed to do that as he's too unstable. I'll change him now.' She scuttled behind the curtain and I heard him shouting in pain. I couldn't watch for his dignity and for myself.

I sat with him afterwards and he tried to pull the sheet over himself. I helped him but he didn't seem to know what I was doing.

About ten minutes later, Ant arrived with one of his friends from the church who had taken him is as he doesn't drive. I briefly greeted them both but left quickly as I was so upset.