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Seeing my dad lying on a hospital bed in the living room slipping in an out of delerious consciousness for two months until the tumor spread from his stomach and stopped his lungs. Knowing from a year earlier that he had les than a 1% chance of surviving as long as he did. Maybe the hardest moment was seeing the surgeon who had successfully removed all but microscopic pieces of tumor twice before tell my mother that this time, he couldn't help him any more and that the chemotherapy's 1% chance of success was his only hope. It also hurt to hear that ImClone, the only company that made a drug that couldwatch Sam Waksal of ImClone led out in handcuffs after bringing down his comapny along with the drug that saved 16% of no-hope-left patients from exactly the situation my father was in. It was also hard to know that two months after he died, an experimental treatment that "has the potential to cure 30% of all human cancers" was scheduled to begin clinical testing. Now I know that even if he did make it for another two months, red tape has and continues to hold up the trials.
Seeing a man who was 6'4" and 230 pounds and in good shape who took one sick day in the 6 years he worked at his last job and still managed to make it to work every day while recieving chemotherapy waste away to 120 pounds and unable to even drink water during the minute or two each day that he was even semi-conscious was the hardest time of my life.
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