- November 13, 2018
- Living with Cancer Blog
By Janice C.
I get testy right before test results. I tell my husband to plan not to be home during that tense period, I don’t like when he’s in my line of fire. It makes me feel terrible and guilty and I don’t need that crap on top of all the mounting anxiety. Sometimes he listens and goes to stay with friends, or sometimes he just heads to the basement for a long period of mandatory evacuation. The kids come around and I can tell they are tentative too. I manage to put on my best face for them, but really I want to say, just leave me alone people! I need to brace myself for bad news.
Last week the bad news came. The cancer is spreading. Fast. My husband broke down, but I was stoic for the whole conversation. I had braced myself for this. This is the devil I now know well. I asked what the next steps are and I can see by people’s reaction that there aren’t many good options left. Truth be told, I feel better this week, even with bad news, then last week when I was waiting for it.
I think what people need to know is that unless you are on this heinous cancer road, you really don’t understand. Don’t take it personally, it just is. You don’t know how it feels to have your future ripped out of your reach. Your future is now this murky path that has no long term picture. It may hold quicksand and you’ll sink or it might have a cliff and you’ll go overboard. If you’re lucky it will have a meadow and you can lay down and stare at a tree and the sky – the only things that are still holding.
I know I will regret being bitchy and difficult, this is not who I’ve always been and not how I want to be remembered. But it is where I am today and I hope people who love me will love me anyway. And I hope they will remember that only I can shake up my brain and make it try to see the meadow.
Tomorrow is a new day. I’ll try to refocus.
3 Responses
This is raw and real. Along with fighting for your life, you are supposed to know exactly how to behave politely for others? This is a for sure a murky path that no one really ever takes so very few can travel it without regrets or a wrong turn of some kind. But be kind and forgiving to yourself, it would also be what I’d say to those that love you: be forgiving to yourself if you think you could have been ‘better’ in this, the most challenging situation that you and your loved ones must ever face.
In my heart
I came across a saying the other day, that passed again through my mind as I read your very real and heart-stirring post– “It’s okay to not be okay”. I just want to let you know that although I don’t know you personally, I see and hear you through your words. You aren’t alone, and your loved ones aren’t alone, either. Cancer sucks. Much love to you all.