Warning: this is an unedited stream of consciousness I wrote in the hospital a few weeks ago. This is real and honest and yucky. Fears and thoughts and what-ifs. Because this is probably universal. Our maybe you wonder what's going through my head about all this. Here's a peek.
So much to say, but where do I start?
Fears: Ian's dumbs don't dissapate
His enlarged blind spot keeps him from driving. How does one do hospital visits without being able to drive? Does that mean the end of his formal ministry? What about reading books and watching movies and fiddling with the interwebs? These have become much of his awake life.
On Friday they say, I'm sorry, this is a grade IV situation, and the only thing we can do is keep you comfotable. Update your will and hug your kids.
We need to do invasive or intense chemo. It drains him and he ends up being frustrated with is own lack of energy. This in turn troubles the children (see most of the above as well)
He becomes prone to seizures/the dumbs because of this and other future treatments to the brain. Where does it end?
If none of this is curative, when is enough enough? When does the treatment endanger him or exacerbate things to an unacceptable level?
What do I DO without a husband? How does that look? I'm okay with forever caretaker ... but widow? Can't brain that.
Truth: I've imagined widowhood for YEARS. Some people might have fleeting scary thoughts about their kids getting into drugs, their loved ones being injured in war or getting hit by a bus - I have flashes of sad and lonely woman in her big house with her two cats, trying to keep herself together for the sake of her kids. Or deciding to stop mourning and be human again, only to meet resistence from folks who think "too soon, girl, too soon."
Realizing I'm nearing 40. When these things happened almost ten years ago, and I had the same thoughts, the future was in 5 years ... now that it's been 9, the future is ... This math isn't making sense, but let me try to put it this way - at 28, 40 was a LONG way off, and I may have considered a "decent life lived." Now that it's around the bend, I feel like I'm/we're just getting started with this whole marriage/family/life thing, and 60 would be a good life lived. I'm sure this is universal (teens think 30 is super old!) but in this context ... things are out of whack.
I'm not afraid to ask for help. I have learned to accept help and gifts graciously, I hope. I'm not worried about surviving financially or even physcially. Not spiritually, although I'm sure there will be bumps. But emotionally? How to BE. This thing - as it rolls, when it ends ... how to BE.
Cancer is not just the thing eating away at the person you love. It's the ball of yuk that comes along with.
