It's Been A While

That is coincidentally the name of an awesome song by an awesome band, Staind. You should totally check it out. 

Anyway... yes, it has been a while hasn't it. A lot of stuff has happened since my last post. OK it's not that a lot has happened, but a few important things.

The most important one being the deterioration of my dad's health. He's very ill. I want to make a separate post purely dedicated to his condition and illness, because I feel like he deserves his own post. This post is just an update of what's happening in my life right now. He's very weak, and honestly we don't know how long he has left. It's doubtful he'll get better. And I'm not going to sit here and pray to a god I don't believe in for a miracle to happen. I don't want him to be in pain any more. It's an incredibly difficult time for my family, and of course for him. It's an evil evil situation.

And not to mention the timing. He went into hospital last week, in the middle of my A levels. This might sound selfish to you, but I'm worried about my grades. Now obviously my father means more to me than a few letters on a piece of paper, but I know that he would want the best for me. And I want to make him proud. But trying to concentrate on studying when your father is terminally ill is not an easy thing. I want to spend every minute of every day by his bedside, but I can't until my exams are over in 4 days, and I don't know whether he'll live that long. I'm so exhausted, both mentally and physically. I cry myself to sleep at night, because thinking of my dad in pain is so, so heartbreaking for me. I'm aching all over. My anxiety is acting up. I'm stressed out. 

It's such a horrible horrible situation. My dad does not deserve the suffering he has gone through. As I said, I'm going to write a whole post dedicated just to him, and it won't be the last one. I'm hoping I can draw some awareness to the disease he's suffered from for the past 7 years, a disease called Primary Progressive Aphasia. It's a very rare form of dementia that affects under 65s, generally. This isn't why he is in hospital now; well, not directly. In the later stages of dementia, the body's immune system starts to break down, so they are more prone to infection. That's what is killing him. But I am appalled at the lack of support we've had from the government and the medical profession. There is almost zero research into this disease. It's sickening. And my dad is too young to be suffering from dementia. It's tragic. 

For now, we can just hope that his pain isn't prolonged. Obviously, the selfish side of me wants him to hang on for a while longer, so I can spend full days with him. But that would be cruel. I can't imagine his suffering.