Dad likens diagnosis to 'a hand of cards'

Blue September is about raising awareness about prostate cancer, a disease which claimed the life of the father of Charlie Anderson.

I still remember the day my dad told me he probably wouldn't die. I still remember the day he did.

It began with a conversation.

On a January afternoon in 2003 my parents had just returned home from a doctor's appointment.

There had been dozens of others – weeks of not knowing what the pain was and why my dad would constantly rub his left rib, especially after playing golf.

He likened the diagnosis of prostate cancer to a hand of cards. He had been dealt this one and now he had to play it.

He would later make up axioms to help rationalise his situation.

"There is a difference between possibility and probability," for example.

The oncologist said there was a possibility of things getting worse, but they probably wouldn't. Those were early days.

I had recently finished secondary school and had made plans to travel. Following through with those plans was the toughest decision of my life, but I went.

At 17, you find it difficult to accept most things your parents tell you, but in this case I don't think my dad had accepted that word either: "Terminal".

For five months, contact with my parents was by email and telephone conversations. I was removed from the drama, the hospital admissions, the doctors' visits, the pain. My reassurance that everything was OK came through cyber space and was always punctuated: "Love Dad."

When I returned home from that trip, he and I had another conversation.

I walked into the arrival terminal at Auckland Airport. However, there was no welcoming party, just my mum reading a book. She looked tired.

When I walked into our apartment, Dad was standing up. Five months had passed. He looked thin. His pants hung loose around his legs. His skin looked grey.

Two days later, we sat down. He told me he was going to die.

"I didn't know," he said. He was serious.

My dad's routine had become one of beetroot and carrot juice, seared liver, which he would chew and spit out, and chemotherapy cocktails. He wasn't going down without a fight.

My brother and I went to meditation lessons with him. Despite being brought up a Catholic, he wasn't religious, but he was spiritual. He would enjoy debates with his rationalist siblings about what awaited him. He would enjoy talking to friends who didn't enjoy talking about cancer or death or about anything uncomfortable. That was most of them. However, as a result of at least one of those conversations, a friend had a check-up. He had early stages of the cancer. He is still alive today.

Dad never bore grudges and told me he only had one regret and that was not resolving a toxic relationship he once had with an early girlfriend from a bygone era.

He had gone racing-car driving and scuba diving. He had a family. He had lived his life. All he wanted now was to go on picnics.

The final day came quickly. He was due to go into the hospice for pain "management", but he was too weak to get downstairs and into the car. We needed an ambulance. The pain must have been immense, but he never wanted morphine – that would mean he had lost control.

While he was lying on the couch waiting for the paramedics to come, he smiled and winked at me.

I spent the afternoon with him. I was the last of us to see him conscious. He wanted us all to go home. "Get some rest."

Mum and I were woken at 2am by my brother. The hospice had called him. They said we needed to come in. It ended with a breath. One final staggered breath that seemed like it would never come.

From 2am to 8am, he fumbled through them. Then the breathing stopped. Nothing.

He slipped out the back door, mum said. Sun streamed in the window. A family friend dropped off some muffins. She stood at the doorway, waved to my dad and said, "Goodbye, dear friend".

It seemed like a good day to die.

- © Fairfax NZ News