I Should Have Been Able to Save My Dad

[spunky]

My Dad was my best friend, he was also the one person in the world I could tell anything to and he wouldn't judge me. I lost him on January 30th, 2014. He suffered a stroke ten days earlier on Monday the 20th. I can still remember vividly finding him in his room. He couldn't move his left side. All through the procedure to remove the clot from his brain I had this horrible feeling that he wasn't going to make it but he did. The doctors sounded so positive that he would make it. Everything started to go downhill when he had a second stroke and when he could no longer breath on his own, feed himself, or cognitively function we let him go. Watching my Dad pass away was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

His loss is compounded by the fact that I am only 21, I was living with my Dad while I went to school so for the next six months while everything is getting worked out I am living in his house all by myself haunted by his memories. The part about this that is so much harder is I feel like I could have saved him if only I had found him fifteen minutes earlier or made him go to the doctor. His stroke was caused by atrial fibrillation. I just feel so guilty about everything. Any fight I ever had with him, all the vacations he never took, all the sacrifices he made for his kids. Could he have recovered? I just want to know if the guilt will ever go away or if I will have to live with this forever?

[cindyjane]

I am so sorry for your loss.  I don't think that we ever get over the loss of a parent but somehow I believe that we will navigate our way through life until we meet our loved ones again.  I hope that you can get rid of the guilt.  I went through some of that with my mom's passing 4 months ago ... all of the "what ifs" ... "should haves" ... "could haves" ... etc.  I believe that the guilt will lift as you come to realize that we have no control.  As for any past arguments with our parents, we all have them.  That is life and we all have them ... I don't know of any loving family that hasn't had arguments.  The main thing is that you were there with your dad when you were.  Take care

 

Cindy

[Guest Kirbibizzle]

Dear Spunky,

 

I have been feeling the same kind of guilt as you. It's eating me up inside. My dad was my everything, my greatest friend, my biggest supporter.

 

My dad suffered from a ruptured brain aneurysm and died three days later on January 25th, 2014. I know I had no control of what happened to him, but I still feel deep down that I could have saved him, had I only gotten him help sooner. He said his head hurt, but it was much more than that. He was bleeding inside of his brain. I didn't know what was happening in his brain, even he didn't know. He was still talking to me and everything. The aneurysm eventually caused him to have a stroke as he laid there on the floor. He fell into a coma and never woke up again. The entire left side of his brain had basically shut down, he'd never be able to live outside a hospital bed. So I let him go, just like you did with your dad. It was the hardest thing you could ever ask a person to do. I wish he had just asked me to call 911, but he never did. He hated hospitals and would never go there, even if his life depended on it. All he had to do was ask. All I had to do was force him. We both thought it would go away and he'd be fine. How naive we were.

 

I feel so miserable about myself because of how he died. I have to live with this for the rest of my life, knowing if I had just done more, he may have had a chance. Due to the unpredictability of brain aneurysms, even if he had survived, he most likely would be stuck with neurological problems and permanent disabilities. I didn't want him to have to go through any of that. I wanted a healthy dad, not a helpless dad. So either way it was a catch-22 situation.

 

He died much too soon, I still had so much time I needed to spend with him. I'm only 25, not much older than you are. I feel even worse because my dad left everything he ever owned to me. I'm now in the house where he and I lived together, and it feels so empty without him here. It's not a home anymore, just a house. Everything he ever did in his life was to support me. He's given me so much and now I don't feel like I could ever live up to the kind of man he was.