On this day 5 years ago… about now in fact, I was just setting off from my house in the Midlands on my way down to Brighton to visit my father in hospital. Little did I know that in 6 hours time I was going to have to make the most difficult decision of my life.
He’d been taken ill over the weekend and was taken to hospital by ambulance. As far as I knew he was “ok” and he was being observed. In my opinion he was in the best place and I wasn’t too concerned. That said, of course I was still worried, and my colleagues encouraged me to go down to see him to keep his spirits up. No doubt he’d be out in a few days.
I’d had a call at the start of the journey from my brother to say that he was really worried about dad. I did my best to keep him positive and explained that dad was in hospital and the doctors were looking after him. There wasn’t a lot we could do so we should try to stay positive.
The weather and traffic that day was appalling. The rain was battering my windscreen as I travelled slowly down the M40 towards the south coast. At one point the clouds seemed to have gotten even darker, the rain even harder. An incident on the motorway had caused every one to grind to a halt. Sat in traffic, my phone rings again. It’s my brother. This time he is distraught and besides himself.
“He’s not going to make it”
It turned out Dad had had a massive heart attack. I’m not sure exactly what was going on at that point, but all I knew was that I was stuck and couldn’t do anything about it. I was all alone, in the rain, unable to get to my Dad over 100 miles away, because I was stuck in traffic… i was helpless.
I’m not sure what happened after that… the rest of the journey was a bit of a blur and I remember not taking any other calls from my brother as I needed to focus on the driving. I remember getting to the hospital at perhaps 4ish… it was definitely dark. The next few hours were spent with dad and my family and talking to the doctors to understand the prognosis… it wasn’t good.
By this point dad was in a coma on life support. The advice we were given was that there was no chance he was going to come out of it. The chances were that if we continued he’d eventually have another heart attack and if by chance he survived he would not come round… he was essentially not coming back. We had a decision to make, did we continue on with the life support or do we turn it off?
I have thought about this decision quite a lot. Was it the right thing to do? Should we have got a second opinion? Were the doctors wrong? I drove a lot of the decision because I felt like I had to in the moment. There was a lot to deal with as the reality and gravity of the situation dawned on us. I made a decision based on the facts that were available and weighing up the alternatives in my mind. Of course we discussed the options as a family but in the end there was only one thing to do.
If I spent the last 5 years wondering what if. If I had let it consume me and paralyse me I wouldn’t have moved forward. I/we made the decision and there is nothing we can do to change it. Life throws decisions at you everyday and you make them based on what you know. There is no right or wrong, just the decision. Move on and move forward. You cannot affect the past.
I’m not telling you this because I want sympathy. I’m telling you this so that you too can have the courage to make tough decisions.
Rest in peace Dad x