Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Waiting Game

I've started and not finished about 10 posts over the past few days.  I'm hoping they come in handy at some point but none of them seemed like quite the right fit today.  When I started this blog, my goal was for it to be as honest and real as it could possibly be.  I don't want to over or under dramatize anything.  I don't want to write about things that make this whole experience seem like anything other that what it is.  So that's what I'm going to do today.  I'm going to tell you exactly what I've been thinking about.  My parents just got very nervous.

It's been so strange to be "that" family.  You know what I mean, right?  Cancer is the kind of thing that happens to other people.  Not us.  It feels like we've suddenly become the main characters in a book or a movie or something.  Some days it still doesn't seem real, and some days it's so real that I can't seem to remember what life was like before this.  Wherever I am on the scale of reality doesn't matter though, because I never stop thinking about it.  Never.  Not during the day, not at night, not even when I'm happily engrossed in my tree pose at yoga class.  It's always there, tempting me to consider the unthinkable.  Freaking cancer.  You suck.

Lately I've found myself constantly trying to resist the urge to call or text Dad a zillion times a day to find out how he's doing.  I've texted and deleted the same question about eleventy million times.  How are you feeling now?  How about now?  And now?  Somehow it seems like if I can just grab hold of that next little piece of good news, it will allow me to wave off the dark cloud of worry that follows me around incessantly.  News flash, it doesn't work that way.  This is cancer we're talking about.  It doesn't just stand up and say, "well folks, my work here is done, carry on".  We literally have no idea what's going on inside Sam's or Dad's body.  They get chemotherapy, and then they wait.  Have you ever heard the phrase, "waiting is the hardest part"?  Because it's the truth.  At least when they're up at the hospital getting their chemo it feels like they're doing something.  You know, being proactive.  But then they get home and we all just sit around staring at each other, twiddling our thumbs, watching for some sort of confirmation that it's working.  It's like we think that somehow red lights will start flashing, and confetti will fall from the ceiling, and the Star Spangled Banner will be blasted over giant speakers when the cancer cells start shrinking.  So far, we've experienced nothing of the sort.  BUT the tumors that were found on Dad's neck are completely gone.  Certainly that means something, right?

And so, we wait.  We wait to find out if the Doctors got it right.  We wait for two or three weeks in between every treatment to see if anything changes.  We wait day in and day out hoping and praying that this works.  But Dad?  He has resorted to visualization techniques.  Hey, it can't hurt. 

   


3 comments:

  1. You & your family are incredible people! The love you have for eachother shines bright & warms anyone who's around to observe. You're great & I enjoy reading your posts. Thank you!

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