My (F28) dad (M57) is starting to have hallucinations due to his brain cancer. Do I entertain them or nip them in the bud?

I hope this is okay to ask here. I wasn't sure where else to go.

January of this year my dad was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme. The life expectancy from diagnosis is typically very short, as it grows very quickly. His tumor didn't respond to treatments and we've just been kind of riding it out and keeping him as comfortable as possible.

It honestly looks like we're nearing the end of the battle. His symptoms are getting worse and more aggressive, but the newest one is he's having vivid hallucinations. From what he can communicate (it's limited), none of them seem bad or scary (I haven't personally been present when they've happened yet, my mom relays the information). But my question is when he starts reacting to a hallucination, do I shut it down in an attempt to keep him grounded here in reality? Or should I indulge them and let him just roll with it? Like today he told my mom he saw a "blue puppy jumping around the bedroom." should we just treat it like a toddler playing pretend? "oh? What's the puppy's name? Did it have a cute collar?"

I've never had to deal with anything like this. This has been the hardest experience of my life and I can't imagine how scary and awful it must be for my dad. So I don't know if it's better to just let him have his blue puppies, or try and keep rewiring his brain to see reality. Would letting the hallucinations get carried away cause him to slip away from us faster (mentally I guess), or should we just accept they're going to happen regardless and they aren't hurting him? I just don't want him to be scared or worried. Right now they're fine so it seems okay to be like "yeah sure blue puppies are rad huh" but what happens when he sees something fucked up and we try and explain that it's okay it isn't real after we've been supposedly seeing shit with him this whole time?

Tl:dr: dad's brain cancer is causing hallucinations. Do I shut them down or entertain them?

Submitted August 05, 2019 at 06:18PM by annieisabum https://ift.tt/2OKre08