I should be enjoying my holiday in Southern France courtesy of RCI (Thanks to Jeff Cummings for amortising an Extra holiday into Points).
However, I am here under the cloud of my father’s unexpected death, arising from a massive heart attack on 8th August whilst in hospital to have a second knee replacement.
The truth is that I feel guilty … but Why?
My father had been severely disabled for several years .. unable to walk for more than a few metres before grumbling of his extremely sore knees. The surgeon had advised him that it was a relatively risk free operation with a 95% success rate …. yet father remained frightened of that 5% .. the 1 in 20 risk that things could go wrong. Was he right?
All the family remained convinced that the better odds lay in the 19/20 chance that things would go swimmingly and it was true for knee #1. Dad was a perfect patient … no history of medication and a textbook recovery leading to an early return to knee #2.
Again surgery went perfectly, but father went downhill in hospital, feeling unwell almost from the outset.
On Sunday 8th August, my father succumbed to a massive heart attack and died although there had been no earlier indicators of problems.
Now I am on holiday (a late start after the funeral), but it doesn’t feel like a holiday. I remain guilty for persuading him that he was daft to focus on the negative. Was I wrong to do so … would he lived otherwise? I don’t know.
What I do know is that the family persuaded my father that he would enjoy a better quality of life with surgery. That was certainly true after knee#1 when he walked more in 6 weeks than he had done in 6 years … and relished the experience.
Needless to say that knee#2 was a different experience which I can’t help feeling led to his death. Until that operation my father had been extremely fit with no medication and only the wonky knees giving him the problem. Did the extra surgery introduce the stress that led to a heart attack?
Now I am left with the eternal conundrum … did I hasten my dad’s death by persuading him that surgery was the right answer?
I can’t help feeling that I did. Would you have done differently in my circumstances?
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