05/31/2012: What I want to and what I have to

Where to start?  What I want to talk about?  Or what I have to talk about?


What I have to it is.  I think sometimes I write really long blogs and people don't make it through to the end and I can't afford to have this missed.


Y'all are the best support I have.  People in my world are so very hit or miss.  They can be there for me when it's convenient but there's always something going on.  I rarely ask for help - that should read I **never** ask for help.  I mean, I have twin babies at home.  I had twin babies at home and I had two surgeries by the time they were six months old.  I was taking care of babies while unable to bend or lift any weight because we took them out of daycare.  Why'd we take them out of daycare?  Because it was nice to be home with them and we'd rather've not spent the money, since I was home.  Was that wise?  No, it made recovery HARD.  Much longer than it had to be.  But we couldn't fathom using our vacation weeks, given that we could just un-enroll and have them home with me.  Do you know how hard it is to put a baby on the floor so you can run to the bathroom when you can't lift, you can't bend, and you can't run?  And, just for shits and giggles, Husby chose to only take one day off to help out.  Why?  Because I **never** ask for help.


Friends and neighbors later said "we would have helped, we just needed to know you needed us".  I cannot, for some reason, pick up the phone and say I'm whelmed.  I certainly won't say I'm overwhelmed.  I just don't ask.  I'm afraid it makes me look weak or something.  Or like I can't handle my life.


Well.  Then there is now.  NOW I am asking for help.  I **need** someone to worry about me right now.  Because it CANNOT be my husband.  I am there for him.  Right now, he is not allowed to be there for me.  He can't console me in this.  I can console him, he is NOT ALLOWED to reciprocate.


I bet you're saying get to the damned point Lori.


Ok.
















Fred has cancer.


Do you know how hard it is to type that?  To say it?  I lost my mom to this brutal word.


Cancer doesn't just affect the person that **has** it, it affects the family of the person that has it.  But no one, well, very few, ever stop to ask the spouse, the child, the father, the mother, the brother, or the sister - How are YOU?  It affects each family member in different ways.  Spouses moreso than siblings, maybe.  Children moreso than parents, maybe.  It's all different.  Who knows.  What I'm saying is the role you have in a person's life doesn't necessarily indicate how much you'll be affected or not.  My mom's cancer affected me far more than her siblings.  It affected my step-father more than me.


But here I am.  Again.  My favorite person on the planet had his world turned upside down yesterday.  A simple sentence.  "You have cancer".  And a whole new outlook is born.


I want to break down.  WANT to desperately.  All the feelings of losing my mom all came flooding back in less than a second.  The second in which that sentence was spoken.  All the worries and fears of what it would do to her, how she would fair, the world we moved into as she fought a valiant fight...it all came back.


My husband's cancer is "very curable", our PCP says.  It's "the best cancer to get, if you have to get cancer", she says.  


We don't know much of anything right now.  We don't know what stage.  We don't know when surgery will be scheduled.  We do know surgery is imminent.  We don't know the course of action.  We don't know much of anything right now except for that, yes, yes he does have cancer.


My mom had cancer.  I am still fighting her cancer to this day.  I will always fight her cancer and what it did to me, too.  The person that has cancer gets the worry and the concern and the prayers and the support from everyone around them.  Those around the person, well, they're just there for support, aren't they?


Already today, as word has spread, people have sent emails and text messages and made phone calls and such telling Fred they will support him however they can.  No one but Fred has said "Lori, how are you?"


And. It.  Is.  Not.  NOT.  NOT! Fred's job to worry about me in this.  He doesn't need that stress.  He needs to focus on him and beat this.


Statistics say he'll beat this.


Statistics said my mom would beat hers, too.


There is no room for complacency with cancer.


All I know is I need someone, someone other than my sweetheart, to worry about me, too.  And so far, none of my friends or family, in-laws though they are, have uttered a single sentence to let me know they're here for me, too.


As my step-dad used to say, "It's not just the patient that has cancer.  It's the whole family."


If you've ever had it in you to support a blogger, please help me now.  How?  Just be there.  In spite of my absence for so long, please just be there, read, comment, let me know you're there. I think this is the only place I'll go to really let go, to let it be about me.


Fred asked me this morning "are you worried?  Because I really am".  I said, "Of course!"  He said "Well good, because you aren't showing it".  I said, "Of course not, that doesn't help you!"


That means I'm doing my job.  I did it with my mom.  She didn't need to worry about me.  Fred doesn't need to worry about me.  He, like my mom in her day, needs to focus on himself.  Worrying about me is a stupid distraction and it's a stress he doesn't need.  Stress takes energy.  He needs his energy.  I aim to be a help, not a hindrance.


Of course, I will talk to him and I will answer honestly if he asks direction questions like above.  I will continue to be the wifey he knows.  But I will not be, for him, the person that takes his energy.


I guess I'd forgotten this.  I did it for my mom.  But with all that came flooding back yesterday in that one little second, I realized I forgot how much energy it takes out of me to work so hard to not be a stress for them.  And I'm scared.  When I did it for my mom, I was only me.  Now, I have twins, I have a husband.  I don't take care of only me, now.  I take care of an entire house and work a job that isn't as generous with time off as the job I had when my mom had cancer.  I take care of a lot, now.  I could get away with shoddy friends back when it was my mom because I didn't have so much of me invested in so many things.  But now, shoddy friends hurt.


Sigh...


Time to move on to the next topic, I guess.  Now I'm just beating a horse...


So what I want to...I am thinking this will wait 'til tomorrow again.  Who cares about me and my health now.  So I'm in pain and life is generally difficult every day.  Pain does that.  But my pain, well, it's not cancer.  Sure, there's no easy answer for mine and I have to live with it until I do something extreme.  But it's not cancer.  So there ya go.  How 'bout that for a little perspective.


I guess I'll approach it another day...or let it go...who knows.  "Talking" about it sure don't make it better.


I hope everyone else had a better hump day!