The C Word – Day 21 Taking a Breath

Today marks three weeks since we went to the emergency room for a kidney stone and emerged with the diagnosis of cancer.  It has been a long, arduous three weeks.  When you think death is staring you in the face you start facing a lot of other fears. 

For me, it was not so much as fear as figuring out things like: how will the girls and the granddaughters react; how will I comfort these people; are all of our legal documents in place for ease of transition; how can I get George to enjoy the here and now moments; how will I enjoy this house if he is not in it.

For him, he was paralyzed in fear.  There was nothing that you could say or do to ease that.   He was afraid for me and wanted to know I would be alright.  He was afraid of leaving people behind without him being able to care for them.  He was afraid that the doctors would wash their hands of him because he was hopeless to save with the cancer being in the advanced stage. 

The look on his face, the physical look of terror, was hard to witness.  So many tears, so many fears, overwhelmed him.

Some of the things that came up over the course of the last three weeks, the fears and insecurities, are definitely topics that need further scrutiny with the therapist.  This will not be easy as it will require him to learn how to observe a glass as half full rather than half empty.  When his whole life has been lived one way, that change will not come easy. 

In the course of my consoling him I said or did things that made sense to me but I fully admit that I am not in his shoes right now. My gut instinct told me that he would be fine, that the surgery recommended for PMP would allow him to get back to living.  My instincts are not usually wrong. When I voiced to him that I believed he would be okay, he took great solace in that but he still clung to the evil voice that had been hanging over his shoulder these past weeks.  To hear from the surgeon yesterday that they can go in and do battle with this disease, that gave him his greatest hope. 

With surgery scheduled for one month from now, we have some preparations to do and we still should tackle some of those legal and financial things to ensure all is in order.  These are mostly things we just need to double check as we have our wills and trusts in place already.  It never hurts to double check or make adjustments (that is my word of wisdom for anyone out there who doesn’t yet have such things).

For today, we are going out and enjoying a day with the granddaughters (and their parents, of course).  This will be George’s first visit to their new house.  A barbecue in their beautiful back yard.  A day off from this “C” world.  Breathe in, breathe out, relax, enjoy.