Daddy blurts out "I have Cancer"
The thing about illness or cancer when it happens in the family, nothing slows down....words are said, maybe wrongly or not as planned.....but it the problem is when your dealing with the big "C" there is not a lot of time for looking backwards.....
Blurting out the words to the children that "I have cancer, and am going to die" although it was not the best way to let our children know what was happening and knowing the tears and the pain that ran down their faces and the silence that filled our dinning room that evening could not be taken back....It had been said....fear filled all our hearts...yet even though you wish it was a different way as had been planned, you have to continue to go forward....as it goes with terminal illness there is no time to waste....
After the shock of my husband blurting out the news to the children, and I sat there at that time knowing that no words would come to my mind, I also knew that I would sat down with the boys and we would talk about what daddy was going through and that we would be together as a family no matter what happens....at that point there was nothing I could do but try to stay calm ......and see what the tomorrow would bring....
Next came the scheduling with the doctor's what we had to do next. We had already been told that there would be surgery done....but first we had to spend time letting our families know.....so that was our next step....
Even though when things happen like this...an terminal illness, things go pretty crazy....not much time to breath....
The next week, we had gotten the appointments set up..surgery scheduled...I swear the surgeon was blind....He had on these real long skinny black glasses...I figured he needed them to see....and there were no glasses that strong...well, when doing skin grafting they use those glasses...but he was old too...so still kept me wondering...
I think when your faced with an illness that you have been told leads to death there are all types of emotions.....sad, lonely, scared, funny....and that is the one funny that I would have not think would be part of something so scary......
Death, dead, dying....these words are words we hate when someone is sick, or we have lost a child or loved one....but we never realize how often we use those words just in our everyday talking.....We had told my family and we were headed to see Lee's mom....she worked at the hospital and we had not been able to catch her so we decided to catch her on her break.....
We get to the hospital, and we get out of the car....we start to walk toward the hospital and almost at the same time we turn to each other and we say:
"I'm scared to death"....there it was....the word death...something that we had been dealing with for some day know....saying we were going to beat this thing, that it was not going to get us....that we can prove everyone wrong...typical words used when facing a terminal illness....but the word you avoid most is the word "death"...and here we are....walking into the hospital to give his mom the most horrible news she has ever had to hear.....and out of our mouths come that statement..."We're scared to Death".....just as we are looking at each other we realized.....How many times we use the word "Death" every day and not think anything about it................We started laughing, not at "death" but at ourselves for using the word we had been running from for days.....We laughed and laughed until we got to the elevator.....Finally, I told Lee, we have to quit laughing...what will your mother think of us coming to tell her that you have cancer.....yet as the elevator was going up....we were nearly belly rolling pee in the pants laughing...
By the time the doors open we had composed ourselves....I wiped the running make up off and we put on our serious faces.....as we knew this was going to be a very hard day for her..................
What did the laughter do for us.....It drained us of the stress that we had had building up inside of us from that day Sept 13th.....when our world fell apart.
Surgery....the next step......
con't
Blurting out the words to the children that "I have cancer, and am going to die" although it was not the best way to let our children know what was happening and knowing the tears and the pain that ran down their faces and the silence that filled our dinning room that evening could not be taken back....It had been said....fear filled all our hearts...yet even though you wish it was a different way as had been planned, you have to continue to go forward....as it goes with terminal illness there is no time to waste....
After the shock of my husband blurting out the news to the children, and I sat there at that time knowing that no words would come to my mind, I also knew that I would sat down with the boys and we would talk about what daddy was going through and that we would be together as a family no matter what happens....at that point there was nothing I could do but try to stay calm ......and see what the tomorrow would bring....
Next came the scheduling with the doctor's what we had to do next. We had already been told that there would be surgery done....but first we had to spend time letting our families know.....so that was our next step....
Even though when things happen like this...an terminal illness, things go pretty crazy....not much time to breath....
The next week, we had gotten the appointments set up..surgery scheduled...I swear the surgeon was blind....He had on these real long skinny black glasses...I figured he needed them to see....and there were no glasses that strong...well, when doing skin grafting they use those glasses...but he was old too...so still kept me wondering...
I think when your faced with an illness that you have been told leads to death there are all types of emotions.....sad, lonely, scared, funny....and that is the one funny that I would have not think would be part of something so scary......
Death, dead, dying....these words are words we hate when someone is sick, or we have lost a child or loved one....but we never realize how often we use those words just in our everyday talking.....We had told my family and we were headed to see Lee's mom....she worked at the hospital and we had not been able to catch her so we decided to catch her on her break.....
We get to the hospital, and we get out of the car....we start to walk toward the hospital and almost at the same time we turn to each other and we say:
"I'm scared to death"....there it was....the word death...something that we had been dealing with for some day know....saying we were going to beat this thing, that it was not going to get us....that we can prove everyone wrong...typical words used when facing a terminal illness....but the word you avoid most is the word "death"...and here we are....walking into the hospital to give his mom the most horrible news she has ever had to hear.....and out of our mouths come that statement..."We're scared to Death".....just as we are looking at each other we realized.....How many times we use the word "Death" every day and not think anything about it................We started laughing, not at "death" but at ourselves for using the word we had been running from for days.....We laughed and laughed until we got to the elevator.....Finally, I told Lee, we have to quit laughing...what will your mother think of us coming to tell her that you have cancer.....yet as the elevator was going up....we were nearly belly rolling pee in the pants laughing...
By the time the doors open we had composed ourselves....I wiped the running make up off and we put on our serious faces.....as we knew this was going to be a very hard day for her..................
What did the laughter do for us.....It drained us of the stress that we had had building up inside of us from that day Sept 13th.....when our world fell apart.
Surgery....the next step......
con't
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