Beside being a web and software developer, I also have a family. For the past couple of months, my grandfather has been going through chemotherapy for multiple cancers. It started with cancer in his blood, which led the doctors to find cancer in his esophagus and elsewhere in his body. I suppose it’s possibly caused from the drinking and smoking he did earlier in his life.

I’ve watched him slowly degrade from the energetic man I looked up to as a child, to what he’s become due to the cancer and chemotherapy. A walking skeleton with flesh pretty much sums his appearance up now. The doctors said that the cancer could spread to his brain, and after the past few days, it seems that has happened. He’s delusional and paranoid. He has barely eaten anything in the past three days, and has started to live in his own world.

I spent the better part of Saturday night and Sunday morning making sure he didn’t some how injure himself. After being awake for over 24 hours, I finally crashed around 6am Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon brought more delusions. He thought that the bathroom was the den, and attempted to use the bathroom near one of the couches. He started walking around the house with no pants on afterward.

Later, we found him in the kitchen with all the stove burners on, and the sink filling up with hot water. He started rambling about getting the gas and electric company, and having my grandmother arrested. After a couple of minutes of that, he started spouting about my grandmother and uncle stealing all of his money, and put his finger in my uncles face, who grabbed his wrist. I quickly grabbed my uncles hand, and sternly told him to let go (The urge to punch my uncle in the face for that almost got the better of me). I started to lead him in to the living room to sit down, when he started ranting about the food being poison. I assured him that was the same food we had eaten earlier that day, and got him in to the recliner in the living room.

I sat down with him, while my uncle made him a cup of coffee. He asked why this was happening to him, and all I could do was shake my head. He then started talking about god, and how “the rest of them” were the devils servants, referring to my grandmother and uncle. He then put out two fingers, and drew a cross in the air, stating that he had forgiven me of anything I had done in the past. I smiled and got his coffee.

I’ve been periodically checking on him for about 4 hours now. He’s been asleep for about 3, and hopefully that will help…

-Nito