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6 years ago, I believe I started posting here. My mom died in 2022, from Parkinson. Before she died she said... "don't hold your life back, just to care for me"
After, Mom died, I matched and went off to do my residency.
Now my dad has prostate cancer and already has been hospitalized.I still have, like ...2 years to go on my residency.
I really don't know if he will last that long, or even if he is alive, how I will meet him. He already looks so much weaker over the phone.
Did I mention how much I hate cancer ?
It hasn't even been 5 years since my mother's passing... and here we are again, struggling to keep a parent alive.
I'm not ready.Like...how do you even prepare yourself for the void of BOTH parents being gone.

Your parents, both in their own way have given you a gift. Actually several gifts...
1. Your parents apparently have raised a very special person. One that is intelligent and hard working. (you can not even contemplate medical school without either)
2. Your parents have given you a view as to what it is like to be a family member that has a loved one that has a chronic illness, where there is a mortality that goes with the diagnosis.
3. You KNOW that despite all that can be done with medicine the medical community can not cure all.
4. You know that at some point in EVERY patient's course of treatment that there is no more that can be done. Because of your empathy you can honestly talk to family and the patient about seeking Hospice rather than continuing on a curative path. that the Quality of a persons life is far more important then the Quantity of life.

If your dad dies before you complete your residency both he and your mom will still be there to guide you through.
( My Mom has been dead 60+ years and my Dad also about that long and they are both still with me. I hear my Mom and Dad fairly often. When I was taking care of my Husband I talked to them a lot.)

Honor your mom and dad, be the best, don't hold back.
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Last I spoke with him, he said he feels like he is burdening the nurses and doctors because of the amount of times he has to buzz them because of either pain or blockage.

It's a good thing he couldn't see my face when he said that.
Sigh...
This isn't easy.
I can't imagine the feeling of being a burden because of how helpless your illness makes you.
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Its truly amazing though, that somehow, in the middle of my Mom's Parkinson and losing her memory of herself and ability to communicate... somehow she still had a moment of clarity to tell me this.
It's really like those moments they show in movies where, the elder character who is apparently lost in dementia... randomly says something wiser than all the other characters in the room.

When mom passed. We wept. And we clung to our father. Hoping that nothing would happen for at least several years. Then the big C diagnosis happened.

The idea that we could soon suddenly find ourselves with no parent to talk too? Man, that's just a different stage in life. No next generation to talk to. It's like a big hole in one's life.
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I’m not sure there’s such a thing as “preparing yourself” for loss. That’s a frequently spoken phrase with little meaning. I found a huge shift when I lost my last parent, something like a realization there was now no next generation, I was it. Hope that makes some shred of sense. Anyway, hold onto your mother’s words, she spoke real wisdom to you encouraging you not to hold back in life. I’m sorry you’re in this place and wish you much peace
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