Tag Archives: dad

Jun 14 2014
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Daily Life

My Life As A Half-Orphan

Father's DayDadExcuse the sensationalist title.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day, that one day in the year I dread/look forward to in equal measure.

My dad died a few months before my 5th birthday as a result of complications arising from his MS – the biggest complication being that he had MS in the 1970’s.

No MRI’s, no DMD’s. The first picture is of me at nursery before he died. That dress! And I still bite my lip.

Anyway, I first became aware of Father’s Day when the kindly folk at Social Services held a party for all us peeps who had lost a parent (careless). Being told at every juncture that this was for our benefit as we were poor, deprived children who couldn’t hope for much in life put paid to that and I left, humiliated and confused.

In primary school, I dreaded Father’s Day. We were told year in, year out, to draw our family. In Year 5, I drew my older brother standing on a rock, so he looked taller than the rest of us. If the teacher squinted, she could perhaps think he was my dad, as I placed him before my mum. I was embarrassed. Divorce was unusual, the death of a parent was non-existent.

In Year 6, I was called forward to the teacher’s desk on the first day of term and asked about my dad. Must have been a marked-point in the register. I replied (in front of the entire class) ‘Yes, he’s dead, can I go back to my seat now?’

Fast forward a good few years to my wedding day. A mixed blessing. I missed my dad. Fast forward some more years and I come to the whole MS palaver. I got his eyes, I got his MS. I hope I got his cheeky sense of humour too.

I’ve cobbled together tales I’ve learned about him – how he hung out tea-bags to dry on his sister’s washing line to wind her up in front of her neighbours, how he sat before a glass of water in a pub for so long, when people came up to him and asked him what he was doing, he told them he was waiting it to turn to wine. Gentle humour, but it makes me smile.

Now, I don’t feel so sad. He was 35 when he died, I’m now 40. He really does live on – in my son, with his cheeky grin and knowing look. I just wish he had the chance to meet his grandchild.

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Oct 20 2012
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Emotions

My dad, his MS

My dad died in the 1970’s, aged 35, from complications arising from multiple sclerosis. I was four and a half. I don’t think I remember him, as I find it difficult to distinguish real memories from what I have been told.

Over the years, of course I missed my dad, but was it hard to miss what I had never had in my life? I pieced together his MS progression, picking up hints here and there. Back in the 1970’s, MS was often referred to as ‘creeping paralysis’ and was a deadly diagnosis. MRI scans were not actively used until at least the 1980’s, there were no disease modifying drugs and people like my dad were routinely written off and sent home to cope as best they could with what little they had.

I recently heard that my mum had invested her meagre savings into buying a serum from the Eastern-bloc, which would apparently halt, then reverse my dad’s symptoms. She paid a dubious middle man and her money, and the serum,  were never seen again.

Now I have MS, confirmed through two MRI’s, showing the progression of my illness in devastating detail. I have my pick of drugs. I have a whole MS team behind me and have been assigned a neurologist and MS nurse. There is physiotherapy, yoga, counselling and an incontinence nurse if I need her plus a whole raft of support groups and forums. Do I feel lucky?

Yes, of course I do. I was fortunate enough to be born into an era of medical expansion and discovery. Hopefully we will have a cure for MS within a decade. Whilst I was going through the diagnostic process – a tedious, frustrating, point-ticking process – I put a photo of my dad on my kitchen windowsill so I could see him every morning. ‘Thanks, dad’, I would say as I put the radio on. Of all the things you could leave me with, you had to pass on this. Cracking legacy. I was angry, furious.

In a strange way though, having MS made me feel much closer to my dad. With every new symptom – and there were many – I would align myself with him. Did he have this, did he have that? I felt as if we could have been kindred spirits. I may have his eyes, his mannerisms, his fearlessness, but that is only what I hear, what I have been told by other people. Now, I have something I know he experienced.

Is that odd? I hope that I can take every opportunity going, as my dad did not have the chance, or lifespan, to do so. If I can somehow honour his memory in this way, then I will do everything I can to do just that.

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