That's one of the hardest things--watching someone you care about needing help and feeling as if you should be doing more than you're doing--when you're probably already doing far more than you're really up to and you know you're going to pay a heavy price for the sleepless nights, the times when you've had to race around and do things urgently.

Sometimes you have to detach yourself from the situation and look on as if you're just an observer, just passing by. It's very hard to do when things are very bad for someone you care about, but I've found it helps to get some perspective--just so as to be able to carry on instead of falling apart completely.

Very true, and very hard sometimes. He has a way of making me feel like a terrible daughter for having a lack of sympathy. Which I’m somewhat forced to have because my mother will beg and plead with him to listen to at least some of what the doctor says he gets agitated and down right mean with her in his stubborn refusal (for which he suffers the consequences and has been rushed to the hospital a few times) so she calls me over to be the authority.

So when he refuses to get enough liquid in himself, refuses to eat, refuses to take his meds or takes too much of his pain meds, doesn’t do his pt exercises and so forth. I head over and put my foot down with him, and pretty much parent my parent, and occasionally I have to be parent to my mom as well, who has a heart condition and likes to put her needs to the back burner for him.

But then again despite being the baby of the family, any time any pets have had health problems requiring the BIG decision, my family, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and even cousins, have asked me to basically play judge jury and more often than I’d like to admit executioner (by vet visit). So they have decided I can handle the same when it comes to medical. I’m in charge of pulling the plug on my parents if needs require, as well as two aunts and an uncle and my DH.

I guess I come off as having a certain level of emotional detachment, that when it comes to the really hard choices, I’m trusted to be the one to detach myself from sentiment and make the more medically sound choice based on prognosis and quality of life. I wish I could say they were wrong, but yeah they really aren’t, and there’s only the fleeting moments of feeling like a terrible person for having such an ability. It’s not that I won’t grieve the loss of my family members, and they do realize that. It’s more they trust I won’t allow them to needlessly suffer because of my fear of grief over them being truly gone.

Not wanting to accept help or to seek it out is probably one of the biggest problems faced by people in your situation, which must mean managing one crisis after another and constantly being in an emergency-response mode.

I hope you'll be able to find help when/if it's needed--competent people are out there. The resources are often surprisingly available--though they do often turn out to be costly.

At least you can see the humorous side of your father's condition. Bravo!