06/01/2012: Thank you

A thousand times over.  Thank you!


It's funny.  As Jacquie described.  Numbess.  As the numbness wore off, I just knew, just knew THIS is why I blog.  There has been support here all along and it never fails.  People come and people go, yes.  But I have a core group of people I just know I can rely on here.  Through the triumphs and trials of the band, through the excitement of twins, and now this, the support here is undieing.  I was "gone" for 9'ish months with teensie little excerpts to let you know I was still there - and with no support from me at all, for you - and yet, y'all are still here for me.


I do not have friendships like that in real life.  I should.  That I know.  They are invaluable and they help in times like these.  But I do not.  I actually believe that someday I will.  But today, here and now, it has not worked that way thus far.  I have friendships.  I have people I have things in common with that I love to spend time with.  But I do not have that one person I can just call when I'm down.  Everyone is too busy for that.  I have people in my life that mean to be like that for me - as do I, for them, but it just doesn't work.


Anywho, a couple things.

1. Jacquie - email coming.  Good God that makes me cry.  
2. Barbara - I know you know.  Boy do I know you know.  Thank you.  Great advice and it touches me more than you know.  Such a simple thing - take a walk in a park, take a bath.  But simple things are confounding right now.
3. Sarah - when I read that last night, man, it was exactly what I needed.  You sent that right as I was gathering info.
1. I know it's ok to be mad.  And I'm letting myself be.  I think what's hard is this isn't only my feelings about what is happening to my husband.  This is also my feelings about what happened to my mom.  Baggage.  
4. Drazil - I know you think telling Fred is the right idea.  I understand why you think that.  I know you think you'd tell Rambo what you're feeling and dealing with if this were happening to him, too.  I promise you, you wouldn't.  
1. So much to say about that one.  It's at the heart of why I can't be turning to Fred.  Which is at the heart of why this hurts so bad.

And that will be the rest of this blog.  It's exactly what I need to get out, what I can't stew over.  It's exactly what I have to understand and address so that I can be all that I can be for Fred.

Fred is my everything.  I turn to him for everything.  I don't normally care that I don't have close friendships because I have Fred and Fred is who I want.  Fred is my everything.  He is my greatest ally, my greatest friend, my true supporter, and so much more.  He is the person I can tell all my deep dark secrets to.  And through all the everythings, I am the same for him.  It's such an awesome relationship.  

And here I am with fears and worries about him.

I know my sweetheart.  If I tell him his cancer scares me to death and I'm freaked out and mad and all that I am...he will take that to heart and feel guilty.

But he didn't "do" this.  I can't be the one to make him for guilty for something he never would have chosen.

If I tell my sweetheart what I'm feeling, I am taking his energy, his focus away from him.

I can't do that.

Drazil, in honor of what you "said", I did talk to him this morning.  I talked to him and told him why I won't be talking to him about this.  I told him if he asks a direct question, I'll answer it.  But if it comes to me being selfish and needing to vent about what I feel, I won't be taking it to him.

That hurts me as much as the cancer does.  I take everything to him.  To have to with-hold from him just hurts.

But you know what he said?

He said...

Thank you.

He agrees with me.  He lets me be selfish in every other arena of life.  He pampers me and spoils me and loves to do it.  He went through a pregnancy with me letting it be all about me (almost all, anyway).  He went through two surgeries with me and countless doctors visits and watched as I was poked and prodded and tested all to hell to learn I have endometriosis from hell - and he let it be all about me.

Letting this be about him is the least I can do.

It doesn't mean I don't have feelings and emotions and fears and anger and frustrations about it all.  But he cannot be my outlet.

He internalizes most everything.  If I don't ask him a direct question about how he's feeling about four months of bedrest, for example, he doesn't tell anyone.  I did ask him.

I am not an internalizer.  So, needing an outlet of some sort, I know this blog is it for me.

This blog is the place I go where people don't judge me.  If they don't like me, they don't have to follow.  This blog is how I found all y'all.  And (as of this point in time) seven comments have lifted me up and made me feel like I can handle this.

I believe he will ask me periodically, when he feels like he can handle it without my answer distracting him.  But just like I think, me putting my stuff on him is a distraction that isn't worth the potential price.

And, of course, a lot, A LOT of what I'm feeling has everything to do with what happened with my mom.

I will never tell anyone what I endured in caring for my mom.  You don't want to know what I had to do, what I saw, how it all went down.  You don't want to think that a human being could endure what she did, and that her loved ones had to escort her through that hell.  My mom's death was difficult to say the least.  She was 5'7" and by the time she died she weighed 67 pounds.  I cannot tell you how hard it is to literally watch your favorite person wither away.  If withering were the only difficult component of that, that'd be one thing.  But it wasn't.  It was a breeze compared to the "other" things she endured.

Cancer hurts.  And I am so scared of my husband enduring even 1/32nd of what my mom did.

Here's where it's good news.  It's thyroid cancer.  And thyroid cancer is "very curable".  

And that's why I can't talk to Fred about this.  My "baggage" is causing my reaction.  My baggage is making me unreasonable right now.

Odds are, this is "early".  Because of his age, it can't be higher than stage 2.  Stage 1 would mean surgery and he's done.  99% survival rate at 20 years out.  Stage 2 would mean surgery and radioactive iodine and he's done.  99% survival rate at 20 years out.  Odds are, he's gonna be fine.

I wasn't unreasonable to start.  Weds night, we were "fine".  Yeah, not the greatest of days and would have rather heard different news.  We call his dad.  His response, very nice.  They'll be there to help us with the babies on the day of surgery.  Good.  That's truly about all we need.  But then we call his mom.  Good Lord but the earth was crumbling around us.  She literally had to put the phone down and bawl her eyes out, a loud, earth-shattering cry that we heard all of.

Well crap.

Then we call our best friend.  Not happy to hear the news but not unreasonable.

Well, meanwhile, his mom sends an email to all of Fred's family yesterday.  Please pray.  This is devastating.  We don't know how it will all end.

What?

You know what that did to us?  It made both Fred and I feel like we were under-reacting.

All the while, I'm coping with this baggage from my mom, trying to not over-react to a "very curable" cancer.  And after all that, after Fred's cousins and aunts and uncles start sending emails saying "Good Lord, but we're here for you, we'll do whatever we can, we are praying for you"...two things happened to me.

1. I got mad.  NOT ONE person said "we are praying for your family, for your sons".
2. All that I saw and did with and for my mom came flooding back tenfold and I began to think "well, shit, it's cancer and cancer does this"

The good news is, in talking with Fred this morning, he realized a couple things.  

1. He made a statement to me yesterday that "he now knows what it's like to deal with cancer".
1. I got a little mad at that.  No, he doesn't.
1. It's like a mom of a 4 week old baby saying she loves being a mom.
1. At 4 weeks, you don't know much about being a mom.  At 4 weeks, you are mostly a care-giver.  Being a mom really starts when you start teaching right from wrong, safety, courtesy, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.  Changing diapers and feeding - that isn't "a mom".  That's a care-giver.  The mom of the baby will, of course, feel more about doing that for the baby and it is special and it is definitely the beginning of mommiehood.  But that act of changing a diaper, that doesn't really let you understand what being a mom is.  I am a mom, yes, but there is soooo much I have not uncovered yet that will only come with time.  I am nowhere near the same realm as women who have 4 year olds or 8 year olds or 11 year olds.  I do not yet understand the world those women, those moms, live in.  I am a baby-mom.  And eventually I'll become a toddler, too.  And eventually I'll go through the various stages.  And when kids #3 and #4 come along I will probably know more about what it means to be a mom.  But right now, I'm a baby-mom.  Right now I know the love, the tribulations.  I do not know the trials at all!
2. He will know what it's like to deal with cancer very soon.  He is getting indoctrinated right now.  What he "knows" today will change tomorrow as this journey unfolds.  But he doesn't "know" in the sense that a women with breast cancer post-mastectomy knows.  And a women post-mastectomy doesn't know in the sense that a 5 year survivor does.  When he gets to a future point, he will truly know.  Today, he is learning.  Today, he knows what he feels about the diagnosis.  But the diagnosis doesn't even begin to touch what he will ultimately deal with.
2. I know this is harsh.  It's what I feel.  I would never tell him this.  No good would come of it for him.
2. That statement made me realize how to summarize my experience with cancer concisely.
1. "I have been dealing with cancer since 2002."
2. No, I've never had it.  I have not endured the physical aspect of cancer.  But I sure have experienced it in every other way.
3. I told him last night that he does not know what it is like to stand beside the person with cancer.
4. It is hard.  It is hard because very few people ever think of that person.  But in a spousal relationship, this is happening to the spouse every bit as much as it is to the person who has cancer.  And more times than not, the spouse is left holding the baggage when the person who had cancer's journey is over.  More people die from cancer than survive it.  It's why we are so scared of the damn word!
5. I want to never stand beside someone with cancer again.  Once was too much.  And yet here I am for journey number two.  Journey number one ended horribly for me.  It opened new doors that changed my life, and good things came of it, but it was a horrible ending.  I don't want my favorite people to endure this.  Favorite person number one did.  I found a new favorite person.  And now he gets it.  Apparently it's bad to be Lori's favorite person!
3. In talking to him this morning, bringing that statement up, again, as well as a lot of points that are in here, he realized I'm probably more of a guide for him than he realized.
1. For example, left and right we are already hearing "let me know how I can help".
2. Don't.
3. It's that simple.
4. I learned this from my mom.
1. Most people want to help because it makes "them" feel better in spite of the fact that generally they are in the way and they aren't truly helping.
2. Generally they are in the way and become "visitors" and not helpers which means more work for the true caregive, the spouse or the children or the parent, etc.
3. Sure, bring a casserole over or send a card.  Otherwise, let us be.
4. The more closely we stay to normal, the more stress Fred avoids.
5. If you can't sustain what you are doing for us now, after this is over, then don't do it.  

Yesterday, Fred's mom called.  Yesterday our best friend called.  These two people NEVER call.  Fred's mom, really, NEVER.  Best friend, occasionally, when he needs a recipe, for example, but he texts and chats.  He does not call.

This is weird behavior.  We do not want that.  I told Fred this morning he CAN tell them to stop.  And I think he should.  In both cases, when we know something we'll tell you.  We will not leave them in the dark.  These phone calls...they are to make THEM feel better.  They are not really about Fred.  We don't want that.  Fred told me this morning, if they call again today, he will tell them to knock it off.  I'm beating him to the punch on the best friend.  His mom, well, now, that's on him.

Funny.  As I read that again, maybe it shouldn't be on Fred to tell his mom to stop.  I should shoulder more of the stress than he should.  When my grandmother started acting wonky with my mom, for example, my mom didn't have the heart to tell her to knock it off.  My step-dad stepped in.  My grandmother was going to hate whoever told her to chill and both my mom and step-dad agreed better him than her.  She didn't need the stress that would come of worrying about that.  Hmm...interesting.  

And that is why I write.  I typed out the whole thing, proof-read the whole thing, and that jumped at me.  I am not protecting Fred from stupid stressors by saying "You deal with it".  She already hates me, what's one more log on the fire?  She doesn't need to be mad at Fred for that and he doesn't need to be worried about if she is or isn't!

So anyway.  There's my thoughts today.  Big dump - and probably the worst of it, to be honest.  I already feel a gazillion times better.  And I know that if and when I am down, I can come back and read this and remember.  Or I can read comments and remember.  

If anyone wants to reach out privately, please do.  ldswims0808@gmail.com - if you don't already have an email address for me.  And it would mean a lot to me if you did, that I promise.

Disclaimer.  These are my thoughts and feelings.  They are not wrong and they are not always forefront on my mind.  This blog went all over the place and real truths, for me, were shared.  Please do not judge or tell me I am wrong.  I am happy to "hear" perspectives and welcome that, but I do not welcome "hearing" perspectives if it is meant to relay that I am wrong.  I am not up for a debate, just a sharing, if that makes sense.