bendamron's Cancer Blog

December 9, 2007

weekend warrior Views: 83

just wrapping up the weekend of fun and visits with friends and guests. saturday brought a sunny day of opportunity. angel and i walked across the street to the park with skylar. we play the usual fetch and the most entertaining game of hide and seek. i throw her toy as far as possible and then go run behind a tree waiting for her to frantically sniff us out as if we’ve just abandoned her. but the whiffer is still in excellent condition. it feels like old times when life was much more simple and carefree. angel was warmly bundled up, with the scarf over her mouth and nose to keep the slight side effect of breathing cold air in at bay, all from the chemo. in the worst cases, people get a false sense of suffocation when they breathe in the cold air. how pleasant. i could be at the park everyday for the rest of my life with angel.
we head back home and get ready for a night with pete, deneen and zade.

today we met toni at norm’s in fremont, the usual sight of man’s best friends sprawled around tables and booths. well behaved and thinking the last time we were at norms we brought skylar along on my 34th birthday for a late lunch.
i did a little work as they watched the seahawks beat the cardinals. being out and about is possibly the best therapy. observing the components of life move like clock work. waiters bustling orders around, patrons eating their food, cars and buses driving by, and the occasional homeless person asking for loose change. and i think how do people with cancer fit into the mix of all this? my life is pretty much consumed with cancer, i even wondered how many people watching the football game have cancer, and then how many people who don’t have cancer have a loved one with it? but i know the answer is too many.

i got pretty upset yesterday over young cancer spouse blogsite, i must add though, the concept is amazing. it’s an online support group for young people (roughly 20-40 year olds) dealing with their spouse and cancer (unfortunately there are too many of us) i started by reading the bio of the woman who started this network, all wonderful, until she explains the loss of her young husband, and that she is now with another man, hoopty effing dootie! this caused a pit in my stomach, a lighter version of what it felt like to hear the diagnosis. the usual feeling of panic set in. before all of this, i was ready to talk to toni’s friend anthony who is a seasoned nurse at an oncology ward, and ask him the heavy questions about andocarcinoma colon cancer stage 4 and his own experiences with patients. answers that will probably punch me in the gut. but i decide i am not ready to face those answers quite so soon. and quite possibly young cancer spouse too.
i complete my introduction into this ‘club’ to which i wish i didn’t qualify for, like i was trying to sneak in and they’d bust me and throw me out! but minutes later i get several ‘welcome’ to the club responses. 40 year old greg was the first to welcome me. he was my age when his wife was diagnosed. i read his profile and followed up with his wife’s blog, found out she quite possibly may be losing her battle! shit! i start thinking, and it feels like a bad trip, funneling downward, thoughts of cancer with angel’s face plastered all over it. i stop reading. i’m in a funk, and try to hide it. i’m pissed at myself, and with the blog! it feels like they ambushed me, and lead me on with, ‘you’re safe here, happy happy cancer’ and then a ‘eff you! have a nice life alone’. i will be back though, i know everyone on this site is honest, caring, helpful, and dammit all too young! i’m not emotionally ready for it, and just a big fat chicken shit right now.
i can’t stop thinking about it and it shows. shortly afterwards, angel tells me that she knows something is wrong and asks me to tell her. but first i ask sasha if my face was that revealing. kind of, but angel knows me best and knows for sure. i explain my face and the therapist tells me to stop reading too much into things, and reading into bad stories and outcomes. it won’t happen to her, she won’t leave me, and we have 24 embryos to use. i know this and i have to believe it.

tonight we are alone, not lonely, but without family or friends here at our home for quite a while. angel walks into the kitchen and i ask her if she’s okay, she thinks so, and starts to cry (it’s more like a soft wailing, and is usually about how heavy this whole thing really is) i listen and hold her, and then a conversation follows. it’s not a cry out of weakness, or being it, but a combination of mourning her perfect life before cancer and letting her sadness flow out to gather more strength to face this cancer.

Posted on December 9, 2007 at 5:25:00 PM by angel & ben ( Link to this post.