As I lay down and tap away from the keys of my keyboard while reminiscing the times with my Dad, I am, somehow, happy to finally know for a fact that his short yet agonizing battle with a rare form of cancer finally came to an end. It feels good to realize that I will not get a call from him at 12:52 AM with a broken voice, begging me to let the doctors dose him up with sleeping and pain medications to ease the pain. But it feels excruciatingly painful to realize that I will not receive another incoming call from Papa anymore.
My father was diagnosed with Peritoneal Carcinomatosis in January of 2020, right before the storm that CoVID brought to us. Getting him diagnosed to doctors saying that he has few weeks to months remaining, I kept on hearing him repeat himself,
“Let’s not publicize this. I don’t want anyone to be concerned so let’s fight this as much as possible, quietly. I do have some form of hope right?”
Chemo started following right after, which was a struggle and it brought more complications when the world got stuck with CoVID. Appointments were all over the place, panic was at everyone’s doorsteps. Somehow, Allah opened doors for us in the midst of the pandemic and we were able to attend every appointments and chemo session that were provided.
Initially, there were not any significant complications but over the course of a couple of months, I saw his health declining, until December of 2020 hits, and he starts puking irrationally (12–15 times in 24 hours), when I had to take him to the ER, for the 4th time back as the earlier discharge reports failed to pinpoint the exact location of the problem. Regardless, what was a miracle was that the doctors gave him weeks/months during the discovery of this rare cancer in him, and here he stayed with us over a year but that miracle was coming to an end soon.
After a barrage of tests, we find out that he developed intestinal obstructions in the abdomen which eventually will be completely blocked due to mass deposits of cancer cells. No further chemo will destroy them, and this, in a nutshell, meant to us that he would not be able to eat any food, and I mean ANY food whatsoever, other than drinking water or juice, which also has to pass down through a tube that is connected to his abdomen to an external pouch that collects it.
The setup was just for the contentment of the mouth and for him.
Very rapidly, we were also notified yet again that he has few weeks, which forced me to decide whether to keep him home with Mom and me or have him somewhere else with a liquid form of nutrition known as TPN.
I either have the option of keeping him home, accepting that he is passing away and practically pushing him to suicide by not providing him with any nutrition as he can’t eat versus keeping him in a place where he will be administered by professionals 24/7 who’ll provide him with TPN until his time comes.
And obviously, I choose to have him stay over at hospice care.
Weeks pass to months, and I still see Dad as a funny and charismatic individual as he always was. Countless sleepless nights, balancing work, social life, and appointments without anyone knowing anything, it was tough. What was tougher was to see my dying father away from me for over 6 months as he was in the hospital, just waiting, and waiting, and waiting. After a long day of work and me hiding my struggles in plain sight to my friends and colleagues, when I would go to see him, he would look at me, smile, and offer me some juice to drink that he received from the nurses. We would talk, not often as he did with Mom, and it was my fault. I am a mess when it comes to emotions, and it would take the world to have me fight back my tears.
Fast forward to May of 2021, he gets an emergency transfer to the ER due to breathing issues, which resulted in him being on a ventilator, followed by complete life support. We thought it would be the end for sure now, but Allah’s doors of mercy were still open for him, and my man came out of full life support in a matter of 4 days. He started speaking, slightly moving, but was under delirium as opioids along with other treatments were given to him for extreme pain management.
After being stable for a week without life support, within a span of 10 hours of meeting with him and talking to him, he passed away peacefully on May 18th, 2021 at 5.30 AM.
I’m not going to go into any intrinsic details of what my father was to me and the community, both here in the states and Bangladesh, but I was aware for the most part how he loved people in general and they loved him back. Going out of his way and helping someone, having an extremely good sense of humor, suave, and a social butterfly; he had it all and more. He also had attributes that I was not a fan of, but nobody in Allah’s kingdom is perfect or would be, other than Him.
Cancer did not only affect Papa, it affected all of us. An uninvited guest that slowly crept up into our life only to stab us was horrible, and may not a single soul taste it, even though every soul shall taste death.
I may or may not have picked up some of his characteristics, but what I profoundly picked up was his grit.
Grit to be mentally stable in the midst of a medical and financial pandemic.
Grit to smile on his birthday a month before he passed away.
Grit to text me this:
Now that he left all of us, he left peacefully. He left knowing that there were people to care for him, knowing that people loved him profoundly. With the lesson of grit that he left behind, I hope I can be a better Muslim, a better son, and a better human.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.
Verily we belong to Allah and verily to Him do we return.
-Sabab.
