In shock

I have been on this site since March of last year, when my dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.  I tell my family's story, which has just come to an end, not to scare anyone but to seek support as I deal with the loss of my dad tonight.  

My dad went through chemo and radiation and had Ivor Lewis surgery in July.  He did so well with this and was home in just 7 days.  All seemed to be going well, but about a month later, he developed severe back pain.  We took him to the hospital again and again for this over the course of 2 months, but they sent him home with only directions for stretching and physical therapy; as it turned out, he had developed an infection from his surgery that turned into endocarditis.  In October, he had to have valve-replacement open-heart surgery and spent five weeks in a skilled nursing facility to recover from both of the surgeries.  Again, he did exceedingly well - what a superhero - and even had his jtube removed, but developed complications from the second surgery and finally ended up in the hospital five weeks ago with a loculated pleural effusion and eventually, a trapped lung; since then, we have gone through re-insertion of the jtube (which had to be replaced three times since the nursing staff kept crushing pills and inserting them into the tube); mechanical ventilation; dialysis as a result of acidosis and eventual kidney failure; a tracheostomy since he could not stay on ventilation that long without developing more problems in his lungs; pneumonia in his non-trapped lung; infection in his gallbladder, which presumably led to sepsis and lactic acidosis; and tonight, only 13 months after his initial diagnosis, we lost him when he went into septic shock.  

I have no feeling of relief that his suffering is over, even though I know he was being tortured with procedure after procedure the last few weeks.  We would have done anything to keep him with us and to have a chance to finally get through this.

This group has been a tremendous support; throughout these months, I would read your posts and responses to my dad so that he would know that he's not alone.  I don't know how I will survive the loss of my dad.  I don't know if I will ever recover myself from the trauma of these past 13 months.  No one deserves to go through this and I'm so sorry for everyone who is a victim or a caregiver.  I was hoping we would be one of the success stories.  I don't think I ever really understood that sometimes that just can't happen until a few hours ago.