That's how I feel. The thoughts are never ending now. One day things are normal, the next you are told you have cancer, and then nothing is the same. After having my thyroid surgery I feel horrible. I know the meds are still being monitored so I can find the "right dose", in the mean time I feel sad, and tired all the time. My days are filled with appointment after appointment (for the past 10 business days I have had 9 appointments and 7 that that relate to my current health (or lack of). I wasn't able to attend my family reunion this year and have had to "flake out" on several commitments because all this came up. Of course people understand, but it still upsets me.
I am a planner. I deal with things by planning ahead. That has been taken away from me for the time being. As have many other things. All I can do is live one day at a time (sounds cheesy, but it's true) I can't even plan a week ahead anymore. My friends and family are totally great about it, but I am not. I will be missing Austin's first days of school this year (will be in the hospital still). I will be missing Halloween with them too due to radiation.
The closer I get to my second surgery the more scared I am. This one is more scary and I am more scared. I put a smile on my face and deal with it, but the reality is I am tired of it. I wish it was over, I hate having to tell myself to cheer up and put on a brave face. The fact is I am mad, actually I am furious that this has happened and that it happened to me. It's making life hard, it's making me feel like a bad parent, I am not up to doing as much as before. I am lucky to get out for a walk with Ruari- she by the way has changed so much in these last 6 weeks. I can't help but find happiness in her and Austin too. He has grown up, been forced to step up and help when he should be hanging out with his friends for the summer, he's here helping me so Chris doesn't have to miss any more time from work than needed. After looking at the schedule of past and upcoming procedures he will have taken at minimum 4 weeks, not counting appointments that I need him to be at with me. I feel like I am putting his job in jeopardy.
Basically I feel like my life is on hold while I do my best to keep fighting to have a life at all.
People keep asking me if I am worried about dying and I throw facts at them well the number look fairly good for me... but I try not to think about the real possibility of dying, because let's face it I could get hit by a truck tomorrow. Everyone is going to die but I prefer not to think about it. Even when my mind goes there I post it more like what if I don't live. I can't say "what if I die?" .. (oh damn, I went and did it....) Even if my conscious mind rarely strays there, my subconscious mind is happy to do it for me. The other night I had this amazing dream. It was like a 3rd party dream, I was observing my life in a way. It was Ruari's wedding day and I was sitting in the room looking at her getting ready and talking about being proud of her. She kept saying thanks for everything Mom, and I was proud. I felt that feeling... Then my hubby Chris comes to the door and he tells us that it's time to go like as in walk down the isle) I get up to go to Ruari and I mumble some things to her then Chris says your delaying her Becky. I turn around to walk to Chris and it wasn't even me.... Chris says to Ruari I wish your mom was here to see you! and kisses her. The whole time I thought it was me i nthe dream because although I couldn't see myself I could hear my voice, and she kept saying mom. I woke up really upset realizing that I can't escape the thoughts that Life would still go on, and that while I would want that for my family, I also want it to be me at her wedding and NOT some chick named Becky... (sorry to any Becky's out there!) If I want it to be me I had better do everything I can to fight it. So now that I have put this out there I am going to stay committed to being positive. Telling myself I WILL live...and actually believe it..
2 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes and 16 until surgery #2
Thanks for letting me unload my thoughts. I actually feel a little bit better.
You may well not agree with me, but I think kids in the last generation, plus those who are growing up now, don't get enough opportunity to step up and find that they are capable of making a difference. They are stuck with a vague and general hope that when the chips are down they will know what to do and be able to do it. I think this leaves them feeling very insecure as they take on adult roles.
ReplyDeleteSo my position is that Austin will ultimately benefit from taking on responsibility and effectively coping with it. This will make him much more capable of dealing with life's stressors than his peers will be, and his life will ultimately be actually easier and more fulfilling.
For Austin to be quietly assessing your degree of well-being and automatically helping to look after his little sister sounds to me like the foundation for strong and secure maturity. OF COURSE you feel regretful and guilty and angry about it - I don't dispute that. But you are allowed to also accept that there may well be some good in it.
My sister had her first breast cancer (she has had two unrelated primary types of breast cancer) when her kids were older than yours, say around 10 and 7 or 9 and 6. My sister and her husband put the best face on it that they possibly could and protected the kids as much as they could. 20 years on she came up with a large brain tumour in the area most likely to be a breast ca metastasis, and was facing surgery for it. We all gathered and had a frank family conversation about it. From this came the testimony from the now adult kids that they had known that there was something terribly wrong during her first cancer and maybe the hardest part was having to pretend that everything was normal. The "good face" the parents were putting on was interpreted as an indication of how forbidden the topic was and how important it was to fake that the kids felt normal. Now, my sister was a psychologist at the time and no idiot, but this was the result. Her adult kids said that perhaps the hardest part was not being allowed to do anything that might help. Being completely helpless and having to appear that all was well (not at ALL what the parents were intending!!).
Of course you will be able to judge whether this applies to your family at all, but I am hoping you will find the information useful in some way. By the way, her brain tumour turned out to be benign but had caused some brain damage.
xox