My dad passed away from Grade 4 GBM

My dad passed away from Grade 4 GBM

Kelly

My dad was diagnosed in December 2013 after having two seizures in November. They found out he had a tiny, .7cm tumor growing on the left side of his brain. He drove a tractor trailer for the New York Times for 35 years, and immediately they told him he could no longer work. He was pretty devastated about it all. They told him most people lived 2-3 years, but that his odds were good because they got almost all of the tumor out and it was small.
He lived a pretty normal life for almost a year with no regrowth of the tumor. He even started to drive again because he hadn’t had a seizure in 6 months.
In December 2014, they told him the tumor was growing again. Slowly… and then quickly. By April 2015, they did a second “awake” craniotomy. It left his right arm paralyzed. And eventually his whole left side. Then he started to not be able to speak. Before we knew it, he couldn’t walk, talk or take care of himself. We were left with no choice but to get a live-in aide.
In June 2015, they told him he may only have weeks left. It was an extremely fast downhill spiral.
He started sleeping more and more. He was very hard to wake up. He had no interest in anything. He spoke of dying… but told us that he was okay with dying. He was interested to see what was on the other side.
On September 28th, 2015, I was on my way to work at 7:30 am when my sister called me and gave me the news.
None of us were there when he passed. He had been sleeping… I feel so much regret about that. I wanted to hug him and tell him it would be okay, because I knew how scared he was.
We were all pretty in shock though, because we honestly didn’t think it would have happened so soon.
I miss him every day. I hope he has peace and healing in heaven. I wish for it every day. The last thing he told me was that he loved me. I hope he knows how much I love him, too.

Good luck to all of you out there,

Kelly Egan

Opinions expressed within this story belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views or opinions of the National Brain Tumor Society.