Sorry for the novel, my mind is a mess and I just need to get it all out 😭
My dad died on 11th Nov 2021. He was 73. He had end stage renal failure for the last ten years and this year alone he broke his hip, had delirium while in hospital and caught Covid but he bounced back from all of that plus cancer and numerous other things over the years. I was starting to believe he was immortal after everything he survived, as childish as that sounds.
On 10th Nov, I took him shopping and he was fine and laughing and joking and I dropped him off home at around 4pm and by 10pm, I got a call from my mum saying he had passed out and she couldn't bring him round and the paramedics were on the way. We arrived a few mins before the paramedics and he came round but he looked as white as a ghost and I'd never seen him so ill looking. We later found out it was his heart that caused it and he took a cardiac arrest while the paramedics worked on him at home and a further 4 in hospital. It was discovered he had super high potassium levels and the medicine to bring it down wasn't working so he kept taking cardiac arrests and by the 6th, his ribs were broken and his chest was caved in and they decided it was best to let him go if he took another and he was lucid and awake when the docs told him and the rest of us all this and he was so calm. It was so bittersweet and surreal. We were with him for 17 hours in the hospital and we went from being told there was hope, to there might be some hope, to we'll give him one more chance to watching him die and listening to the death rattle for 12 hours. I'm so lucky I got a goodbye while he was lucid and talking. It was the hardest day of my life and the longest too. It felt like a each minute was a full day and it was like groundhog Day just repeating itself over and over.
Ever since he died, I've barely cried or felt anything at all. When we were behind the ambulances waiting to be blue lighted up to hospital with him, I felt everything. I felt like the panic and anxiety would physically kill me, it felt so strong and I felt some in the hospital and the day he died but after it, there's been nothing. I dream about him every single night and sometimes it's been nightmares but in every dream, he can't talk to me any more even if he tries or I scream at him to talk to me. Maybe that's why brains way of trying to process his death?
All I can see when I close my eyes is him in the ICU but I can't feel anything. I can almost hear the beeps of the machines sometimes. I've lost 4 (including him) loved ones in the last 2 years and I've never felt this way. The other grieves left me numb for a few days and then it floored me and I rarely dreamt of them.
I loved my dad more than anything in this world. My number one fear was losing him and now that it's happened, I feel weird that I almost seem 'normal' on the outside and that I barely feel anything though I am remembering his death constantly. I often forget for a while and then see loved ones crying over his death and for a split second I wonder why are they crying, what's happened?! And then I remember and I feel bad for them but I can't empathise with them which the polar opposite to how I usually am. I usually feel too much empathy for others and none for myself. I do suffer from BPD and CPTSD and wondering if that's a part of it or its just normal shock from grief. I'm starting private grief counseling after Xmas and new year and I'm still recieving care from my MH team atm
Can anyone relate?
Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas 💚