Good things

I cannot sleep.  I had a weird experience yesterday.  I had to get it out.  Bear with me. 

My dad found out he had cancer almost 2 years ago.  My mom and dad had just been out in Kansas City because I had my gallbladder out and they were helping with the kids.  It was summer.  It seems like that is when things started to fall apart.  My gallbladder was the glue that held us all together.   Losing it made some sort of hole in the universe.  

I was in Colorado after my dads exploratory surgery.  I went with them to see the doctor for the follow up.  It was hot out.  It was a big hospital.  My mom had done the research.  She already knew.  My dad did not talk about it.  I am not sure if he knew what the doctor was going to say.  When the doctor came in and told him I was sitting across from my dad.  His face dropped.  The doctor told him the plan for the surgery.  I told the doctor that the plan sounded shitty.  My dad did not have a lot of options.  Do a giant surgery where the open him up, remove the cancer coating most of the organs in his belly, fill him up with chemo, shake it around, and wait to see when the cancer comes back.  Not if, when.  Or do nothing.  Just wait. Wait until he starts to get sick,  and then manage what ever comes. 

I am not sure it hit home with my dad until the doctor said to him that he had stage 4 cancer.  I will never forget the look on his face.  He was so healthy.  He did not drink or smoke.  He watched what he ate.  He went to the doctor.  He had a risk of colon cancer. He did his colposcopys.   He ate shitty bran ceral every morning. 

There was a fellow and a medical student there.  My dad trusted the fellow for some reason.  He asked him what he would do.  He said that he would let the doctor do the surgery.  He said I would not say that about every doctor he had worked with, but he would say that about this particular doctor.  After my dad's surgery, I saw that fellow in the cafeteria having dinner with his wife and 2 young kids.  I told him thank you for getting my dad through the surgery. I think I would like to take that back.  I wish he would have died during that surgery.  It would have made more sense.  I feel like it would have been easier.  Like my dad said to me many times, well you can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up mor quickly.  

My dad had some blood work to do.  They both had their brave faces on.  I went to the bathroom to cry and call my sibilings.  We left the cold hospital.  We went to Wendy's.  My dad had a choice to make about the timing of the surgery.  He could have done it the next week while I was still in Colorado, or he could have waited until September.  I asked him to do it while I was there.  So selfish.  I wonder if things would have been different if he would have waited.  We will never know.  We talked at Wendy's.  My mom and I both were crying.  And that is the first time I saw my dad cry.  Just a few tears.  

A week later, we were at the hospital, waiting.  It was hot.  The hospital was cold.  And all medical buildings and hospitals smell the same.  

Yesterday, I went to meet a new primary care doctor.  I hate going to the doctor.  So much that my blood pressure goes crazy high.  So does my pulse.  I went into the parking garage at the doctors office.  There was nothing so I parked outside in the handicapped place.  I got out of the car, it was hot.  I went back to the hospital in Denver.  To that horrible day, and the many worse days to follow.  The heat of the parking lot.  I had to force my self to walk into the medical building.    It smelled like the hospital where my dad had his surgery.  It was cold.   I went to the bathroom.  And I cried.  It was such a powerful flash back. Like nothing I have ever experienced.  I sat in the stall and lost it.  I did not want to go to see the doctor.  Nothing good happens at the doctor.

 I made it in there.  I met the doctor, and she was wonderful.  She gave me the nurses desk phone number.  I have to meet with a surgeon about placing a port for the IVIG and having an inscional hernia repair (again, from the magical glabladder that held us all together).  I go back to see the doctor in August.  I think I have found a doctor.  She asked me how I was doing mentally with all of this.  She told me that her best advice is to not feel like a sick person.  She said not to get frustrated.  Even though dealing with chronic illness at a young age is frustrating, to try and not feel sick.  I think that is wonderful advice. 

My dad was so brave to face that horrible surgery.  I am lucky to have options with my illness. I am trying to face this illness and be as brave as my dad was.  I never talked to him about it, but I want to believe he did that for my mom and for us.  I am not sure he would have chosen that if it was just him. 

And today, I have to be brave.  I have to go back to the hospital.  I have to have more IVIG.  I have to face the heat of the parking lot and the cold and the smell of the hospital.  I have to believe that good things will happen there.  I am healing, slowly.  I will not be this sick forever.  The primary care doctor was taking my history and she looked at me and said "You are going to get better, I can tell, you are going to get better".  Maybe good things do happen there.