Uncle Near Death As Cancer Takes His Life

On several occasions the past couple of weeks I have written about my wife's uncle who is dying of cancer. Only three weeks ago he visited his doctor and learned that he had lung cancer which had spread to his brain in multiple locations. He was immediately put under the care of the Hospice organization to manage his pain control and to offer much needed support to the family members in charge of caring for him during the final few weeks of his life. Yesterday, my sister-in-law moved him from his home in Austin back here to Waco so she could better take care of him.

The past couple of days, he has started running a high fever of 104 and my thinking along with the Hospice staff is that he will most likely pass from this Earth in the next 48 hours. Unlike when I saw him the last time a few days before Christmas when he was awake and talking, now he is uncontentious most of the time which is a blessing not only for him – but also the people in charge of his care. My wife's sister is providing for the majority of his day in and day out needs along with her husband and adult children. They are tired, confused and a little bit angry because cancer is taking someone they love and slowly putting them to death. Watching someone die a slow and painful death from cancer is one of the hardest things a person can do.

Like my sister-in-law, six years ago I watched my own father died from Pancreatic Cancer and it is impossible for me not to think back to dad's last few days of life in 2001. So many things about this uncle's last days are similar to my own father in the way the family watches for the signs of death in the extremities of the fingers and toes while praying for a quick end and then feeling guilty for having such thoughts in the first place. There is nothing like the daily stress of caring for and waiting for a loved one to pass away. When my own father was dying of cancer I didn't even cry as he was fading away. Instead, it was months after his death before major grief finally set in and I was able to show emotion and anger at his passing. Now we all just sit and wait for the end to come. The man we all loved is no longer in that dying body because of the amount of medicine that is required to keep him comfortable. Soon God will stop his heart and a new angel will be welcomed to heaven.

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