It was a beautiful sunny morning yesterday in my part of NJ but all I could feel is that it felt like the storm clouds were racing towards us and darkness was falling as we approach the surgery date, one week from Thursday. My mood is literally bouncing like a bad elevator, shooting up to the happy penthouse one minute, crashing down to the basement the next. One moment I am OK, the next I just want to cry. My wife is somewhat the same as the gravity of her breast cancer diagnosis continues to strangle us.
Sleep is becoming ever more elusive. Waking up at even 4AM and not being able to go back to sleep is becoming more and more common. While I have always been OK with less sleep, my wife has never been and she is feeling more and more exhausted, which worries me. She has been working out at the gym and eating right but she still needs her rest. She goes into the city again this morning for more tests so hopefully she will be able to nap on the bus (unlike much of the country, mass transit, even in the suburbs is pretty decent around here, especially if you are commuting to NYC, Jersey City, Newark etc. We live 1/2 a mile from a NJ Transit commuter bus stop that will get her into the city in a little over an hour, depending on the Lincoln Tunnel). I keep hoping that one of those tests will say "oops, misdiagnosis," especially as I can't even feel her lump anymore (denial isn't just a river in Egypt) but every day I am coming closer and closer to accepting that is not the case.
My wife took her first Xanax a few nights ago. She said it doesn't help much, but that it at least did change her dream channel from chemo nightmare to the more I missed the bus and now I need to walk home bad dreams. She is really tense these days, can't relax at all. It didn't help that she took one of those online life expectancy quizzes the other day that showed right now, before she has even been staged, her life expectancy is down 2.6 years. Nothing I can do can ease her mind and let her take at least a few moments of bliss while she forgets what is on her mind for a moment or two. I haven;t heard her laugh in days, even when the children do something funny. These seems to be no joy now.
My wife took her first Xanax a few nights ago. She said it doesn't help much, but that it at least did change her dream channel from chemo nightmare to the more I missed the bus and now I need to walk home bad dreams. She is really tense these days, can't relax at all. It didn't help that she took one of those online life expectancy quizzes the other day that showed right now, before she has even been staged, her life expectancy is down 2.6 years. Nothing I can do can ease her mind and let her take at least a few moments of bliss while she forgets what is on her mind for a moment or two. I haven;t heard her laugh in days, even when the children do something funny. These seems to be no joy now.
I don't like the way I am becoming cross with the children. I was working at my desk the other morning, before the school bus came, when my 7 year old daughter came up behind me. She does this often, tries to get me to play or something, despite the standing rule she is not allowed in my office when I'm working. Usually I either let her watch or nicely chase her out. Sometimes I just tell her to get out, but I at least face her. Not this time. I was doing something a little more intense than usual for early in the morning, looking for the answer to a tough problem when she came up to me. As I growled at her to get out I saw she was smiling, giggling, that mommy had left her tea cup in her room the night before. Before I could stop the words were out and she stormed out of the room, upset. God. Maybe I should be taking the Xanax. When things calm down a bit we definitely need to get a family therapist.
Later, when I took the kids to the corner to wait for the school bus it was sunny and temperatures were in the 60s. The birds were singing, some butterflies were fluttering around. The other children at the bus stop seemed happy -- well as happy as children can be waiting for the bus. And I am miserable. After the bus left, and I had chatted a little bit with one of the neighbors regarding my wife, I walked the dogs back home when they stopped to smell the scenery. While they were seeing what messages were left by the local wildlife I stared off into the sky, thinking how beautiful it was out, listening to the sounds of late spring, smelling the fauna, which is delightful this time of the year, when suddenly I realized I had been standing and staring for several minutes and I wasn't enjoying it one bit.
Later, when I took the kids to the corner to wait for the school bus it was sunny and temperatures were in the 60s. The birds were singing, some butterflies were fluttering around. The other children at the bus stop seemed happy -- well as happy as children can be waiting for the bus. And I am miserable. After the bus left, and I had chatted a little bit with one of the neighbors regarding my wife, I walked the dogs back home when they stopped to smell the scenery. While they were seeing what messages were left by the local wildlife I stared off into the sky, thinking how beautiful it was out, listening to the sounds of late spring, smelling the fauna, which is delightful this time of the year, when suddenly I realized I had been standing and staring for several minutes and I wasn't enjoying it one bit.
I am getting to the point where I am hating to go out when the weather is nice. No, let me rephrase it -- I am hating to see people. The other day I decided to work at home not simply because I have a lot of work I want to wrap up before I take off a few days, which I do, but because I just really didn't want to see people. Yesterday morning, I showered, shaved, dressed for work and then didn't go in. Even though most people in my office don't know what is going on, I am finding it grating to see people having friendly, happy conversations with co-workers. Fortunately, the type of work I do can be done anywhere I can connect my laptop to the internet (well not anywhere, I find the sun is too bright on my deck, even with the umbrella up, to see my screen easily).
One of the papers ran a series of pictures from the Shore the other day in one of those "welcome to summer" type stories. Online were the typical series of pictures of pretty late teen and early 20 something women in bikinis at the beach. For the first time since I was 13 or so, I didn't care to look at the pictures. Where normally I could at least admire the women in the pictures (polite way of saying that even though I'm in my mid-40s, there is still a male teenager in me somewhere) all I saw were pictures of happy and healthy women without a care in the world, unlike the woman I love. And I can't stand it.
I know these feelings are narcissistic, as it all seems to be about me, but I find it much easier to worry and complain about stupid things like this rather than confront the 300 pound gorilla -- that the cancer, because of where it is and the apparent suddenness of it is, is much more aggressive than we realize and beyond Stage I or II. We know there is no point in thinking about all that until after the surgery and the tumor and her lymph nodes have been examined, but we can't help it. And this is bringing us down.
What is worse are the feelings of guilt I feel when someone shares good news and I feel upset, such as when a childhood friend announced on Facebook she is cancer free. She has been fighting for a long time and I am really happy for her, especially as I had another friend who wasn't as fortunate, but when I first read her post I got upset. Misery really does love company.
What is worse are the feelings of guilt I feel when someone shares good news and I feel upset, such as when a childhood friend announced on Facebook she is cancer free. She has been fighting for a long time and I am really happy for her, especially as I had another friend who wasn't as fortunate, but when I first read her post I got upset. Misery really does love company.
Basically, aside from reading whatever we can on breast cancer, we are on automatic. We both do our jobs (which, because they both require mental work, can be therapeutic), yet don't ask me what I've done (which has been surprisingly good according to the project leads on this new product that is supposed to transform the way we deliver services to our customers -- I have been a leading contributor from the start, designing standards and procedures, overseeing others work, offering guidance and training, now we see how good I was). Our day lilies are blooming, but so are the weeds in the flower beds we haven't felt like pulling. The house is clean, yet it is a mess. The groceries have been bought, yet we still have a shopping list. I only cleaned the gutters because I realized that plants growing out of them was probably not a good thing. The children still get taken to their after school classes and birthday parties as we try to keep things as normal as possible. This may be all that is keeping us sane at this moment. I realize that sometime soon we will need to speak to a therapist to help all of us through this.
The life expectancy quiz I mentioned earlier is just another nail in my heart that makes me realize that not only may my wife hit the finish line in our journey sooner then I, something I never truly believed would happen as I am a few years older with a history or heart and cancer issues in my family, but that our journey may be much shorter than either of us realize. I guess that is true for all couples, you never know when an accident or sudden illness will cancel your trip, but you never really believe it will happen to you until one afternoon you get a phone call and realize that is happening. It doesn't help that we have been reading several breast cancer books that explain pretty much everything so my wife can make informed declensions when she talks to her oncologist at the end of the month. Ignorance, while not healthy in this case, really is bliss. I want some serenity now.
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