My Worst Nightmare
It's completely amazing how your life can change in one single instant.When I wrote my last post at around 5:30 pm on Monday, I was worried about a few things...
The car getting fixed
The money to pay for the car
What to wear on a "date"
Some stuff I was doing at work
Classes starting
Missing my ex
Right after my Monday post, I took my dad to the urgent care clinic for bad stomach pains. No big deal, I thought. My mom even had chicken soup cooking on the stove for when we got back so she could nurse him back to health.
No one touched the chicken soup.
We ended up at the hospital emergency room until 3 a.m., when my dad got admitted for a blockage in his colon. It could have been anything, but the doctors dropped the unspeakable word: cancer.
Immediately, fear gripped me.
But I still knew there was a chance that this would turn out okay...that this didn't have to end in the worst possible way. I didn't allow myself to believe anything until we knew for sure. I kept a positive outlook, and I thought that would be enough.
It wasn't.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006 is a date I will never forget. It was the day my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer.
At first, I couldn't cry. I couldn't speak. All I could do was stare at the doctor open-mouthed in complete shock. As my mom put it, it's like being run over by a cement truck. It's pain. Fear. Disbelief. So many emotions all at once with one single thought at their center: This can't actually be happening to my family.
I don't have the strength or the ability right now to get into details, but things are looking okay so far. After all the bad news, we seem to be on a more positive track. But we're still waiting to see if the cancer has spread. And we need all the prayers and hopes we can get.
Right before going in to surgery yesterday, my dad said "My daughters aren't even grown up. I'm not done yet." And he's right...we still need him. Our family needs him. He is part of us, and we are part of him, and we're not ready to let him go. He's our dad...our "Popskers," and we love him so much.
Because, really, what is my life without him? It's not my life. I still feel like I'm looking down at someone else's family. It's surreal.
These past four days have been the longest of my life. But we're going to be dealing with this new challenge for years to come. And from now on, I'll look at everything differently. My entire world has been placed in perspective. It has changed forever.
Look at what I was worried about before...
My car? Don't care.
My clothes? Don't care.
My job? Don't care.
My classes ? Don't care.
Being lonely? Don't care.
But now? My family is all I care about.
And we're going to get through this together.
PS: If you're someone who knows me in "real" life, and I hadn't yet told you this news, I apologize for the shock. It's been an insane couple of days and I haven't been able to readily talk about this. However, writing it here has been very therapeutic and I am on my way to acceptance.
posted by Sleepy Girl @ 1:44 PM
1 Comments:
You're in my thoughts, and although my prayers are little more then one-sided talks, you're in them too.
About acceptance, there're these lines on my grandmother's funeral notification:
Said the poet: ""acceptance is a greater force than resistance."
Said my grandmother: "Acceptance, sure, but let's keep fighting every hour, you never know."
You'll get through this, you all will.
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