My Father and Richters Transformation
Discussion
I can’t really explain why I’m writing this. I’m not after sympathy or anything. I suppose I just wanted to get this story out there in some fashion in case anyone was curious.
My father died a month ago today, suddenly, and unexpectedly, and its been something that I was aware would happen one day, but never in this manner. Which I will explain.
My Dad was diagnosed as having Leukemia sixteen years ago. As an industrial pipefitter he worked all over the place and used to do a lot of what he would call ‘shutdowns’ (decommissioning oil refineries I think it was). This would expose him to a lot of nasty chemicals and stuff. It turned out that two or three other chaps he was working with on a shutdown in Derbyshire were diagnosed with the same form of cancer, at similar times. It was a blow but something which he took in his stride, always managing to remain positive even with something so life changing. He wasn’t able to work anymore, and later on in life wasn’t able to be out and about due to his immune system being nearly nonexistent. Even so he always appeared to remain in good spirits. There were times when he would talk about it not being fair that he wasn’t able to do as much as he wanted, but he made the most of it.
He had chemotherapy for a while, until it stopped being effective, then transitioned to a few different trial drugs, until finally landing on something called Rituximab. From what he told me it was incredibly new and only just got past approval in the EU. He spent a lot of last year in and out of City Hospital Nottingham getting the drug levels fine tuned to suit what was going on in his body at the time. Every now and again he would catch something, be it a chest infection, a cold, an ulcer in the mouth, and it would be so much harder to get rid of, taking a lot more time than anyone with a properly functioning immune system. But he would persevere, knowing that eventually things would improve.
Early in the year he had some mouth problems, put down to bad teeth. He had a couple of back ones out, and an abscess was found. My Dad never really displayed much emotion to me over the years but he did say that he was ‘scared s
tless’ at the prospect at what this may hold. The scare was mouth cancer. He was tested and it wasn’t mouth cancer, but something called Richters Transformation. I spent the following weekend researching this thing, and while it didn’t sound good, there were some people who had managed to get through it okay, I suppose I was overly focusing on those instances. I joked to my Dad that at least he wouldn’t have to start blending up his food and it was good he didn’t have mouth cancer.
I’d always been incredibly close to my parents. I’d tell them anything and do anything for them. Being an only child and not having much extended family drew me closer to them I suppose. In 2013, after being in a long-distance relationship for a while, I got married and moved over to Southern California. I always felt quite guilty doing this, considering what my Dad was having to deal with. I suppose I considered that I had to be selfish and do what was best for myself, although it always left with me with a sense of regret. Thanks to the use of Skype and Viber, I was always in close contact with my parents, seeing them once a week and talking to them every day. Not about anything in particular, just nonsensical day to day goings on. I still maintain to myself to this day that had skype and instant messaging not been available I’d have never moved so far away. I managed to travel over when I could, and my parents were able to be at my wedding, despite my Dad only being able to stay for a week, and his travel insurance costing nearly the same as both of their flights over. Over the years of being here they were able to make it over for a longer time, at the end of 2016. I’d managed to book nearly all the time they were here off work, something my wife found odd, but nevertheless I was happy to do it. We saw some sights in San Diego, and had a trip over to Tuscon, Arizona, and then visiting tombstone, somewhere my father was always fascinated by. We visited the Pima Air and Space Museum, and also the Titan Missile Museum, things that my Dad and I were drawn to. It was a very enjoyable trip and felt great to have that experience with them. Before they came over we’d made a list with all the things he and my Mum wanted to see and do while they were over. One of them was to have a butchers around the USS Midway Museum. At the time my Dads heart was not doing so well (ended up being a side effect of a drug) so he never had the energy to be able to walk around, but we’d kept the list and said it would always be around and it could be done next time. I knew with my Dad I’d never be able to know when that would be but hoped it would not be too far away in the future.
Back to the Richters situation. Researching had led me to discover average life expectancy of this disease was anywhere from 4-8 month, so I knew it was a pretty dire situation. I’d called my mum and asked if they wanted me to come back over. They too knew it was bad, but not something that was so dire it required me to come back straight away. (my wife and I had a trip booked for the end of April to get back over to Blighty) I spent every day speaking to my Dad while he was in the hospital, just going on about random things. Cars, technology, random things we both liked. I’d recently watched Guy Martins Spitfire documentary so was talking about that. He said to me that mums and dads die at one point in our conversation. I told him that I knew that but that he still had a lot more to achieve. He was upbeat, felt strong, and was prepared to fight this new cancer that his leukemia had changed into.
On the Wednesday he stopped using his phone while he was in the hospital. I spoke to my Mum and she told me he had chest and back pain, but that it was muscular. It was a relief I thought but I knew those symptoms are often caused by panic attacks and I knew that this thing was getting to my Dad mentally.
That evening at work I called my Mum and asked again, if they wanted me to come over. She still didn’t seem positive but said if it will make him feel at all better then I’d like to come over. She said okay. I looked at flights for the same day, and with them being about $2800, compared to $800 for a couple of days later I asked what I should do. She checked with the doctors and nurses, and while it was a bad situation, there was no indication to anyone that I needed to come that drastically. With this information I booked my ticket for Saturday, 24th Feb, to arrive in the morning of Sunday.
I spent the next couple of nights talking to my Mum, and sending my Dad a couple of stupid jokes in case he happened to use his phone again. He started to improve slightly the day I was due to fly, being given steroids to tackle a kidney infection he was battling. While the wife was driving me up to Los Angeles I had a notification that my Norwegian Air flight was delayed four hours. I made a comment that I knew it wasn’t really a possibility but wouldn’t it be bad if those four hours made me miss saying goodbye to my Dad. But as we were told he was on the up.
After checking in and just finishing some food my mother called me. This was 6pm Los Angeles time, which I knew straight away was 2am in England, and also knew that her calling me at that time on a Sunday was not good. Through the somewhat unreliable viber phone call she told me that he had gotten worse. I asked her what that meant, and she didn’t seem to be able to clarify. After that I broke down slightly in the airport. I asked my Mum if I would be too late, and she said she didn’t think so but then he was getting better earlier in the day so she didn’t know what to think. My wife said that I should have called her back and asked to speak to him, but my Mum said he was trying to sleep so I didn’t want to disturb him. He wasn’t able to talk much, and he knew I was on my way. I don’t to do this day really know what I would have said.
I took off at about 10pm, four hours late. My Dad died two and a half hours later, probably while I was somewhere over Canada. I ended up arriving in Nottingham exactly thirteen hours after he died.
My father died a month ago today, and I just don’t know what to do. He was everything to me, he was actually my very best friend. He introduced me to PistonHeads all this time ago and gave me so much insight into life and how to go about things. The things I’m finding hard to deal with is that I know he was doing so well, and was prepared to fight, I know he was scared and I wasn’t able to say anything to him. Our last conversation was so normal and was a nice conversation. He and my Mum had so many nice plans for the year including getting over to visit me at the end of the year all being well. I’m sad that he didn’t really know my wife all that well, due to it being a long-distance relationship. I’m sad that my Mum was so committed to him and now has to go on life alone. There is so much more I wanted to learn from him and find out about his childhood. I know his father died when he was 18, and I never got to ask him much about his life.
I don’t know how many of you will end up reading this whole thing. I’m at a loss right now. I get angry when people tell me that he is at peace and doesn’t have to struggle anymore, because I know he wanted to be alive, and would have taken any amount of pain and suffering over being dead. I know that I had a brilliant relationship with my Father, and as my Mum said I spent more time speaking to him than I probably would have done if I lived down the street.
My father, Stanley Norman Kennedy, was born in Liverpool, loved Jaguars and Audis, gardening, and technology. I miss him so much.
My father died a month ago today, suddenly, and unexpectedly, and its been something that I was aware would happen one day, but never in this manner. Which I will explain.
My Dad was diagnosed as having Leukemia sixteen years ago. As an industrial pipefitter he worked all over the place and used to do a lot of what he would call ‘shutdowns’ (decommissioning oil refineries I think it was). This would expose him to a lot of nasty chemicals and stuff. It turned out that two or three other chaps he was working with on a shutdown in Derbyshire were diagnosed with the same form of cancer, at similar times. It was a blow but something which he took in his stride, always managing to remain positive even with something so life changing. He wasn’t able to work anymore, and later on in life wasn’t able to be out and about due to his immune system being nearly nonexistent. Even so he always appeared to remain in good spirits. There were times when he would talk about it not being fair that he wasn’t able to do as much as he wanted, but he made the most of it.
He had chemotherapy for a while, until it stopped being effective, then transitioned to a few different trial drugs, until finally landing on something called Rituximab. From what he told me it was incredibly new and only just got past approval in the EU. He spent a lot of last year in and out of City Hospital Nottingham getting the drug levels fine tuned to suit what was going on in his body at the time. Every now and again he would catch something, be it a chest infection, a cold, an ulcer in the mouth, and it would be so much harder to get rid of, taking a lot more time than anyone with a properly functioning immune system. But he would persevere, knowing that eventually things would improve.
Early in the year he had some mouth problems, put down to bad teeth. He had a couple of back ones out, and an abscess was found. My Dad never really displayed much emotion to me over the years but he did say that he was ‘scared s
tless’ at the prospect at what this may hold. The scare was mouth cancer. He was tested and it wasn’t mouth cancer, but something called Richters Transformation. I spent the following weekend researching this thing, and while it didn’t sound good, there were some people who had managed to get through it okay, I suppose I was overly focusing on those instances. I joked to my Dad that at least he wouldn’t have to start blending up his food and it was good he didn’t have mouth cancer. I’d always been incredibly close to my parents. I’d tell them anything and do anything for them. Being an only child and not having much extended family drew me closer to them I suppose. In 2013, after being in a long-distance relationship for a while, I got married and moved over to Southern California. I always felt quite guilty doing this, considering what my Dad was having to deal with. I suppose I considered that I had to be selfish and do what was best for myself, although it always left with me with a sense of regret. Thanks to the use of Skype and Viber, I was always in close contact with my parents, seeing them once a week and talking to them every day. Not about anything in particular, just nonsensical day to day goings on. I still maintain to myself to this day that had skype and instant messaging not been available I’d have never moved so far away. I managed to travel over when I could, and my parents were able to be at my wedding, despite my Dad only being able to stay for a week, and his travel insurance costing nearly the same as both of their flights over. Over the years of being here they were able to make it over for a longer time, at the end of 2016. I’d managed to book nearly all the time they were here off work, something my wife found odd, but nevertheless I was happy to do it. We saw some sights in San Diego, and had a trip over to Tuscon, Arizona, and then visiting tombstone, somewhere my father was always fascinated by. We visited the Pima Air and Space Museum, and also the Titan Missile Museum, things that my Dad and I were drawn to. It was a very enjoyable trip and felt great to have that experience with them. Before they came over we’d made a list with all the things he and my Mum wanted to see and do while they were over. One of them was to have a butchers around the USS Midway Museum. At the time my Dads heart was not doing so well (ended up being a side effect of a drug) so he never had the energy to be able to walk around, but we’d kept the list and said it would always be around and it could be done next time. I knew with my Dad I’d never be able to know when that would be but hoped it would not be too far away in the future.
Back to the Richters situation. Researching had led me to discover average life expectancy of this disease was anywhere from 4-8 month, so I knew it was a pretty dire situation. I’d called my mum and asked if they wanted me to come back over. They too knew it was bad, but not something that was so dire it required me to come back straight away. (my wife and I had a trip booked for the end of April to get back over to Blighty) I spent every day speaking to my Dad while he was in the hospital, just going on about random things. Cars, technology, random things we both liked. I’d recently watched Guy Martins Spitfire documentary so was talking about that. He said to me that mums and dads die at one point in our conversation. I told him that I knew that but that he still had a lot more to achieve. He was upbeat, felt strong, and was prepared to fight this new cancer that his leukemia had changed into.
On the Wednesday he stopped using his phone while he was in the hospital. I spoke to my Mum and she told me he had chest and back pain, but that it was muscular. It was a relief I thought but I knew those symptoms are often caused by panic attacks and I knew that this thing was getting to my Dad mentally.
That evening at work I called my Mum and asked again, if they wanted me to come over. She still didn’t seem positive but said if it will make him feel at all better then I’d like to come over. She said okay. I looked at flights for the same day, and with them being about $2800, compared to $800 for a couple of days later I asked what I should do. She checked with the doctors and nurses, and while it was a bad situation, there was no indication to anyone that I needed to come that drastically. With this information I booked my ticket for Saturday, 24th Feb, to arrive in the morning of Sunday.
I spent the next couple of nights talking to my Mum, and sending my Dad a couple of stupid jokes in case he happened to use his phone again. He started to improve slightly the day I was due to fly, being given steroids to tackle a kidney infection he was battling. While the wife was driving me up to Los Angeles I had a notification that my Norwegian Air flight was delayed four hours. I made a comment that I knew it wasn’t really a possibility but wouldn’t it be bad if those four hours made me miss saying goodbye to my Dad. But as we were told he was on the up.
After checking in and just finishing some food my mother called me. This was 6pm Los Angeles time, which I knew straight away was 2am in England, and also knew that her calling me at that time on a Sunday was not good. Through the somewhat unreliable viber phone call she told me that he had gotten worse. I asked her what that meant, and she didn’t seem to be able to clarify. After that I broke down slightly in the airport. I asked my Mum if I would be too late, and she said she didn’t think so but then he was getting better earlier in the day so she didn’t know what to think. My wife said that I should have called her back and asked to speak to him, but my Mum said he was trying to sleep so I didn’t want to disturb him. He wasn’t able to talk much, and he knew I was on my way. I don’t to do this day really know what I would have said.
I took off at about 10pm, four hours late. My Dad died two and a half hours later, probably while I was somewhere over Canada. I ended up arriving in Nottingham exactly thirteen hours after he died.
My father died a month ago today, and I just don’t know what to do. He was everything to me, he was actually my very best friend. He introduced me to PistonHeads all this time ago and gave me so much insight into life and how to go about things. The things I’m finding hard to deal with is that I know he was doing so well, and was prepared to fight, I know he was scared and I wasn’t able to say anything to him. Our last conversation was so normal and was a nice conversation. He and my Mum had so many nice plans for the year including getting over to visit me at the end of the year all being well. I’m sad that he didn’t really know my wife all that well, due to it being a long-distance relationship. I’m sad that my Mum was so committed to him and now has to go on life alone. There is so much more I wanted to learn from him and find out about his childhood. I know his father died when he was 18, and I never got to ask him much about his life.
I don’t know how many of you will end up reading this whole thing. I’m at a loss right now. I get angry when people tell me that he is at peace and doesn’t have to struggle anymore, because I know he wanted to be alive, and would have taken any amount of pain and suffering over being dead. I know that I had a brilliant relationship with my Father, and as my Mum said I spent more time speaking to him than I probably would have done if I lived down the street.
My father, Stanley Norman Kennedy, was born in Liverpool, loved Jaguars and Audis, gardening, and technology. I miss him so much.
Edited by Polarbert on Sunday 25th March 14:10
Sorry for your loss, chatting about it will do you good even if you don't see it now.
Losing either of my parents is my biggest fear and as they get older I know that day gets closer, we've had close calls over the years, my dad had a TIA about 10 years ago and my mum had breast cancer two years ago.
Thankfully both right now are in very good health even considering what they have been through.
You had a close relationship with your dad and that's something to always remember, your last conversation was a pleasant normal one which is better than one where you know the end is coming soon.
I read your whole post and the love for your dad is very clear, I hope you and your mum can come to terms with his death.
Perhaps in memory of him you could revisit the places you promised you would both return too.
Losing either of my parents is my biggest fear and as they get older I know that day gets closer, we've had close calls over the years, my dad had a TIA about 10 years ago and my mum had breast cancer two years ago.
Thankfully both right now are in very good health even considering what they have been through.
You had a close relationship with your dad and that's something to always remember, your last conversation was a pleasant normal one which is better than one where you know the end is coming soon.
I read your whole post and the love for your dad is very clear, I hope you and your mum can come to terms with his death.
Perhaps in memory of him you could revisit the places you promised you would both return too.
That's a lovely tribute, made under very difficult circumstances. I'm sorry that I don't have much to offer which will lessen what you're feeling.
However - little consolation that it is - once you get through that awful first year, the second is less painful. And on it goes.
At some point in the future you'll make yourself feel guilty because you haven't thought of your Dad for a little while. Don't beat yourself up over it, and don't feel guilty for laughing or enjoying life in the meantime. Let your friends help, if only to be around them. Go out and be with people as well as your wife.
And remember, you've got all of your Dad's knowledge and advice to share with your children if/when the time comes.
I wish you the very best in this difficult time.
However - little consolation that it is - once you get through that awful first year, the second is less painful. And on it goes.
At some point in the future you'll make yourself feel guilty because you haven't thought of your Dad for a little while. Don't beat yourself up over it, and don't feel guilty for laughing or enjoying life in the meantime. Let your friends help, if only to be around them. Go out and be with people as well as your wife.
And remember, you've got all of your Dad's knowledge and advice to share with your children if/when the time comes.
I wish you the very best in this difficult time.
Losing your father is a terrible but inevitable stage of life, and something that never leaves you.
He sounds like a great guy who loved you as much as you loved him, and who had a full and rewarding life.
He may have had battles, especially with his health towards the end, but celebrate the good times, remember the laughs and the love, and live your own life without regret, as he would wish you to do.
What you wrote here was an incredible tribute, being both very sad and yet very joyful at the same time.
You obviously had an amazing father/son relationship and will be able to draw from your dad's incredible strength, resilience and determination moving forward.
As has been said, time is a great healer and whilst you were in the air and on your way it is probably better that you last memory was a normal phone call.
You and your mother will obviously be devastated and I wish you both the very best in coming to terms with your loss.
You obviously had an amazing father/son relationship and will be able to draw from your dad's incredible strength, resilience and determination moving forward.
As has been said, time is a great healer and whilst you were in the air and on your way it is probably better that you last memory was a normal phone call.
You and your mother will obviously be devastated and I wish you both the very best in coming to terms with your loss.
My deepest sympathy. I lost my Dad at a young age 20 years ago on Easter Saturday. Time is a healer, but it remains raw.
So hug your Mum, enjoy your friends and family to the utmost and treat each day as a gift. Squeeze every drop of joy from life, I’m sure your old man would have wanted that for you as mine did for me.
Raise a glass to him on his birthday, Christmas and any other time that seems right.
Someone once told me that people are only truly gone when no one says their name out loud. So shout his name from the rooftops.
All the best.
So hug your Mum, enjoy your friends and family to the utmost and treat each day as a gift. Squeeze every drop of joy from life, I’m sure your old man would have wanted that for you as mine did for me.
Raise a glass to him on his birthday, Christmas and any other time that seems right.
Someone once told me that people are only truly gone when no one says their name out loud. So shout his name from the rooftops.
All the best.
Sounds like a fantastic dad. I was also so fortunate that I had one I could look up to and admire. I wanted to be there to hold his hand when he went. I did in the morning of his last day with my mum. Then took turns with my older brother and then my younger. We all then left to give him a rest as we weren't expecting the worst as he'd only been admitted that morning. We missed him by about 20 mins when the hospital called and said you should try and get back.
5 years ago and it gets easier but have the odd moment (like now) when I'm thinking about him.
Thank you for sharing and wishing you all the best.
5 years ago and it gets easier but have the odd moment (like now) when I'm thinking about him.
Thank you for sharing and wishing you all the best.
Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff