Little did I know it at the time, but 3 years ago today was the last day of my life. I shouldn’t be melodramatic, it was the last day of my blissfully ignorant life, before I changed from a parent to a parent of a child who has cancer. I don’t recall what I did on the evening of July 21st 2017, but I do know that when the phone rang the next morning, my life as I knew it, had exploded.
Most often, people choose to become parents, though from time to time, it does happen by accident. No one chooses to become a parent of a child with cancer, or a cancer parent, if you will. It chooses you, and after it latches on, you’ll never be the same person ever again. I may seem like I’m still regular me, or that things have gotten back to normal, but it’s not true. There’s a new normal that settles in, and the best you can to is try to adjust to it. I still laugh, make up (bad) jokes, and crack sarcastic comments, but if I want to be truly honest with myself, it’s all a front. I think I use it as a kind of armour to distract myself so that my thoughts don’t drift back into feeling down, or experiencing anxiety about our situation. I honestly can laugh, feel happy, and smile, and it’s genuine in the moment, but when things quiet down & I’m alone with my thoughts, I undoubtedly experience feelings of sadness, worry, and sometimes hopelessness.
I haven’t written much lately. Feeling down has been part of the reason. Extra worry about an immunocompromized child while the world is in the midst of a pandemic is another. How many times can I write about how I’m worried about my son with respect to COVID-19 before I begin to bore myself, let alone the people who may read this? E has about 2.5 months left in his treatment, and is all finished with oral chemo on the 6th of October. We’re 3 years in to treatment now, and it has been a grind. I’m done. A couple of other families we know, started treatment after us, and are already done. Their children are girls, and girls have a 2 year course of treatment versus the 3 years for boys. There’s no sour grapes, I’m not angry, or upset, I’m honestly truly elated for them that their treatment is done. We’ll get there soon, though, I may feel a little jealous. That last little part won’t be news to them if they’re reading this, they know! I just want E’s treatment to be done, I’m over it. Finish already. In October, treatment will be complete, but it will never be truly over over, because there will still be monthly checkups in the short term, yearly checkups in the long term, and all of the stress an anxiety that comes along with that.
Work has been a good
distraction lately. I’m elbows deep into a project which had been
delayed from March. It’s keeping me really busy, so that’s a good
thing. But it’s also been a bit stressful because through no fault
of my own, the start date slid from March to June, and now everyone
wants it done yesterday. Despite this distraction today, my thoughts
kept slipping into the past, to July 2017, and the days leading up to
& immediately after the diagnosis. It was an awful time. I’ve
written about feeling completely disassociated with my body; seeing
myself in the 3rd person with the sensation of watching a
movie about my life where everything was going wrong and I was
powerless to change any of it. At that time, I couldn’t see my life
3 hours into the future, let alone 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, or 3
years. I honestly could not picture myself in July 2020, being 3
years into treatment, and almost done. But somehow here I am. Three fvcking years later.
Oh, and fuck you cancer.
