Thursday, August 25, 2011

PTSD trying to forget about cancer

I have not been back to Gilda's Club (cancer support group) for many weeks now. I have been trying many things to "get over" this cancer and that was one of them, especially since a friend there was taken away. After an email and a call from a friend there, and I do miss them, I decided to go yesterday. I had not expected to see the husband of the friend that was taken away. It threw me for a loop. Remember my previous post/plan to just think of her as just someone I don't see anymore and then seeing her husband and her dog (she always had her cute lap dog with her) and her dog went to the chair where she always sat. Just another reminder that she is really gone. I also met a another with colon cancer who is in her thirties she was dx right after she gave birth and her baby is close to Trooper's age. It still shocks me every time I hear of someone else with this cancer.

Going there does not make me feel worse than when I do not go. It does not matter how far I run or how long I stay away from cancer places it is always there. At least there I do not feel alone. I really feel like I have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) from this. It is so weird to describe and I am not sure if you haven't been there you might not understand. I don't think I would if someone told me this. You would think she is done with treatments right now and tests are ok right now so be happy (I am for that) BUT with that now comes the hitting of what you have just been through and how that has forever changed you and the mental and physical scars that are left with you. And you can't get back to where you were before this.

There is this pressure to live life perfectly (since you have cancer and you might die), live life to the fullest, no regrets, do all you want to, be happy, don't sweat the small stuff, make every day/moment count yadda yadda yadda and all those "great" sayings. And of course I fail because real life gets in the way and doesn't care you are trying to live some great life now and just sucks you back down in the middle of stupid things.

Ok, so I give up on that since it is impossible and try and just go back to the old life, yet really I can't but I try and pretend and then I am mad about that since it really is only pretending and I can't pretend for very long. Cancer always comes to mind, and having dr appts doesn't really help! FYI, will be having another scope on Monday, totally caught me off guard when the dr said that, so now stressing about it, and not the procedure but the results of it. I really feel like I live dr appt to dr appt saying your ok for right now. Well, at at least that is what I say! The dr of course reminds that I have cancer. yeah, because I might forget I have cancer!

It is like this movie I saw (b.c.--before cancer) about a soldier who comes home from war. He is messed up mentally and his friends and family just don't understand. They think he should be happy that he made it out of the war alive when his friends didn't and why is he so messed up and why can't he be back to normal what happened to the person they knew.

I am happy for how I am doing right now but this is *still* hard to deal with and what I may have to deal with in the future.

I think everyday when I wake it will be ok and I will be alive for my kids and then it feels like I am asking and praying to win the health lotto. It just seems too much to hope for and too much to ask for. Why would I get the lucky health ticket.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Taken away

A friend was taken away. I knew and I was told that it was close. Her dr was correct in the time he gave that was left. But still I just couldn't really believe it would come....because she looked physically ok, but her face showed a sadness, a far off stare the last few times I saw her. Her visitation was today I did not go, her is funeral tomorrow, I will not go. I hope that doesn't sound mean but I just can't do it. If I went I would have to be strong and cold as not to break down and flip out, which would be a real possibility, just being there and seeing it all and hearing it all, it is too close to me, too real. Not going allows to have her be a friend I just don't see anymore rather than a friend that I see that is for sure gone.

I have only been to a few funerals in my life. When I was a young child my grandpa died. At the time his death didn't effect me hugely, I thought he was old and thought that is what happens. Now I know he was young, only in his 50's and died of cancer. What did effect me was that in the room over from his viewing was a service for a little girl. That was the first time I realized kids die. My next funeral was for my Granny. I was so sad she died because I had really knew her for a long time and she had made a huge impression on me. Though I was sad I was so happy for her because she told she would be going to heaven. The other funeral I went to was for a young mom who died of cancer, she left 2 little boys. It still didn't hit me, I was sad for them and her but it never made me think it could be me. But now having cancer has made me see it could be me and it is too hard to face that and see it with my eyes and not flip out since I know I am so much closer to it than any of the other times I went to a funeral. Before cancer, you know you can die but now you know in a much more real way you can die, you feel so much closer to it and I just would rather look away. And yet every day since dx I can't escape not even one day that I don't think about death. I now wonder how people can just not even have it cross their mind for days and months on end. I just can't seem to get back to that place when death never entered my mind even when faced with a funeral.

To my friend taken away, thank you for sharing your last year with me.