Anticipatory Grief.

I didn’t even know there was a term for this until I joined the Macmillan online forum. It refers to the grief you go through before a person has passed. 

When my dad was diagnosed, it came as huge shock. We were under the impression (following multiple G.P and A&E visits) that he had some kind of urinary stricture. Having had a PSA test (he previously had, and beaten, prostate cancer), which came back as virtually undetectable, we thought our worst nightmares we over. Turns out prostate cancer can recur in rare cases as small cell carcinoma, which doesn’t show up in PSA. As a side note, throughout this whole saga, nobody once felt it necessary to do a simple digital rectal exam, even though we discovered two days after his death that an enlarged prostate was noted on an unrelated colonoscopy he had in July. But that’s a whole other story… 

We found out in the most horrific way. Another story I don’t wish to go into at this point but let’s just say a doctor accidentally told dad he had very advanced cancer, when the c word had not even been mentioned. When he left hospital, I found out from his discharge letter that it had spread to the spine already. Now anticipatory grief is a strange thing. Even though my dad was still here, I mourned for the future plans we had that would never come to fruition. There would be no more holidays. Would he be here for Christmas? (He was, although very ill). Would he be here for my birthday? (Sadly, he wasn’t).

My whole life seemed to stop at that moment. I couldn’t make any plans, I didn’t want to go on holiday, as we didn’t know how long I had left with him. I just wanted to spend as much time as I could with him, which as I live an hour away and had just started a new job, was limited to weekends. The spinal metastases caused him severe pain and a risk of spinal cord compression and after the diagnosis, with the exception of hospital appointments, he only left the house once. 

I always kept a hope that the hospital were wrong. That he would get better, or at least have longer than the six months they had assigned him. I think you do that because otherwise you couldn’t get through day to day life. I kept that small glimmer of hope right up until the day before he passed away, when it was clear he was approaching the end. 

At the time he was diagnosed, I was watching a Netflix show called The Midnight Club, which centred around the lives of terminally ill teens in a hospice who shared ghost stories (I know, not a great choice). During one of the episodes, one of the main characters succumbs to her illness, and that was the first time my grief engulfed me. I mean I felt actual, physical pain like I have never experienced. I cried and cried for a good hour or two. My husband had gone to bed so I was by myself and I have not ever felt as lonely as I did at that point, yet equally I wanted to be alone in my sadness. And that’s how the next few months went. I’d visit my parents for the weekend, be as upbeat as I could (my dad was the most positive person and it worried him sick to see me upset) and then I’d drive home, usually having to pull over so I could cry for a while.