"My dad's care and support"

My dad was recently referred by his GP due to significant back pain and concern his prostate cancer has spread. I attended an appointment with him with a prostate specialist who we felt was quite dismissive and almost acted like we wanted dad's cancer to have spread, joking in what felt a patronising way when dad was really suffering at the time, but we were just keen to find the cause of pain and knew it was something suspicious.

The next day I accompanied dad to an appt with Miss Beaton - Bowel specialist - due to dads other symptoms. Miss Beaton was amazing and took our concerns seriously and referred dad for a CT scan.

We returned to be told dad likely had stage 4 lung cancer that had spread to the bone and lymph glands . Miss Beaton was so genuinely compassionate and empathetic throughout both our visits with her and explained everything clearly and made sure we understood- amazing.

She introduced us to Martin, Lung specialist clinical Nurse, who took over and was again truly amazing. Explaining what was going on, the next steps etc, always making sure we understood, it made us really feel is good hands. Martin told us to call him whenever and followed up on everything he said he would really quickly, with dad being booked into Exeter hospital the following week for radiotherapy - which gave us a few good weeks with dad-thank you. When I phoned Martin and his team, they always called me back, answered questions and took our concerns seriously. An amazing team! Thank you.

We attended the appt with Oncologist Cleo and Martin to discuss what the next steps might be. Cleo was again amazing at going through everything slowly, clearly explaining everything, delivering such bad news that nothing could be done. It was very hard to hear even when we’d suspected it but they were both very supportive.

Cleo went on to discuss dad’s home life, as a widow dad lives alone but I was working from his house so he wasn’t alone. Cleo explained how I may not be able to work with what was going on. I said there was a plan in place when I need to take some time off to care for dad. Cleo explained again how it may be hard at this time but I wasn’t getting it.

Cleo then asked dad if she could discuss prognosis with me which he said yes and that he wanted to stay to hear. Cleo very professionally and I could see it was extremely difficult for her to tell us - probably in case she may be wrong - which I can understand may happen in some cases and families become upset with the professionals. But Cleo explained how if she had to guess but it’s very hard to and she may be wrong, but that dad could have just weeks and this may be the time I planned for to take time off work.

I am so truly very grateful for this and want her to know so she and others will tell other families if they feel this is the case for others. I finished off and paused work over the next couple of days and so did my brother. Because of that we were able to take care of dad properly and spend his last days with him.

3 weeks later to the day of our visit, dad took a dramatic decline and had syringe driver fitted the next day. I'm so grateful I had that time with him and didn’t try to battle on working through tears thinking I needed to work until he appeared near the end. I would so terribly regret it and feel awful now.

Thank you so so much Cleo, the advice you gave to me, which I passed to my brother was truly priceless allowing us to really make the most of time with our amazing dad. He was so brave until the end, continuing to say he felt ok until he quickly didn’t -the day before his driver was fitted.

Because of your advice my dad's sister - who is in her 90s -  came from Norfolk to see him and was able to spend nice time with him before it was too late, also dad's friends and other family came to see him, but if we didn’t know he had just weeks , we would of carried on going with the flow, with dad saying he was ok until he really wasn’t and all the memories we created and crammed into his last 3 weeks would not have been possible. Please know how grateful we all are to you all- Miss Beaton, Martin and team and Cleo .

My dad's journey through his illness, NDDH and saddening diagnosis was made so Much better because of you all. We are beyond words grateful.