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My Daddy Died Of Cancer

by | Oct 4, 2010 | Cancer and Neoplasia, Family, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Parent Loss, Sadness, Trauma | 15 comments

On April 23, 2010 at 4:10 pm, I learned that my Daddy had a brain tumor. He had been having some trouble with the right side of his body and that had led him to the doctor. Many tests later, the doctors discovered the tumor. At that time we were very optimistic that the tumor was benign and that it could be removed surgically. The next week, on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 he went into surgery.

And our whole world changed.

After his brain surgery there were words thrown around like “oncologist,” “chemotherapy” and “radiation.” Phase III-IV Glioblastoma. Ugly words. He was in the ICU for a few days but after he weaned off the vent from surgery he was ready to “Get ‘R Done.”

And get ‘r done he did. He moved from the ICU, to the Neuro Acute floor to the rehab floor. He was told by his physical and occupational therapists that he was the hardest worker they had ever seen. Medically, he shouldn’t have gained his ability to walk and use his right arm again after his surgery. We were told with a glioblastoma tumor that the longest he had was 5 years.

Everyone grabbed on to the *5 years* part. 5 years? That’s plenty of time to get bucket list things done. Plenty of time to play with the grandkids, time to finish up projects and plenty of time to say goodbye.

Little did we know how fast things would go.

July 4, 2010 – my Mama called me and told me to “get to the hospital.”

“Are you for real? Like this is a for-real get to the hospital thing?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

He had been admitted a week before with odd swelling in his head. Staph infection. Brain surgery on June 29th AND June 30th. TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Of brain surgery. On July 2nd they talked about him going home and how his infusion antibiotics would work. On July 4th he was no longer going home but Home with a capital H. Wait…what?

His heart rate was high and his blood pressure was very very low. His kidneys were no longer functioning.

And then? We waited. And we prayed. We prayed for no more pain. But no more pain? Meant no more Daddy.

He held on until the early morning hours of July 13th. I received a phone call at 1:45 am and was at the hospital by 1:55. My sister looked at me simply and said, “he’s gone.”

He’s GONE. My rock. My strong Daddy. Gone.

It’s been not even three months since that day. Most days I would say I’m okay. Some days I’m simply not. The physical pain of grief sneaks up on me and overtakes my body. The anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds don’t seem to work at all.

I miss him terribly. I have no motivation. I rearranged my bedroom yesterday and had to sit down and sob. I’m 32-years old with a daughter of my own and a house. But moving furniture in a house that my Daddy was so entrenched in crushes me. He is NOT HERE. He is not going to complete my “Daddy Do” list. He will not see my little girl grow up. He will not see *me* grow up.

You see…my wonderful Mama and Daddy saved me from a bad marriage. They let us live with them for four years. I got to live with my parents as an adult – I got to know them as my friends. My Daddy was my rock through my divorce, through losing my job in early 2010 AND through his illness. He was our family rock when my nephew was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 7. He gave me advice on everything from what to wear to an interview to how to paint my kitchen. And now? He’s just gone.

I miss him.

Trauma – What?

by | Sep 30, 2010 | How To Cope With A Suicide, Stress, Suicide, Survivor Guilt, Trauma | 10 comments

In the last 2 or 3 weeks I have read through the ENTIRETY of Aunt Becky’s Blog. I laughed, I cried, I sobbed my tiny little heart out.  And now this? More? Good, because I honestly did not know what to do with myself once I was done those 370 pages.

But this site…This site makes me realize, once again, that I really do need help. I was working backwards through the categories, because I am a rebel like that. I click on Surviving, and what do I see, but Trauma Resources. And I was like, okay, let’s read that because I probably don’t need to know about Murder Resources, Military Matters, or Rape.

“Emotional trauma may be caused by a one-time event, like a rape, or from ongoing stress, like living with a chronic illness.”

Huh. I have a chronic illness or 10. All mental. Do those count?

  • Depression since I was a child, not a teen or even preteen. Child.
  • Debilitating anxiety that makes it so that I cannot handle any form of outside work, unless it has a well-defined and very soon end date
  • Aunt Becky’s descriptions of her son’s “autistic-ey behaviors” have made me suspect that maybe my mom hasn’t been telling doctors and child psychologists everything about me, because I see a WHOLE LOT of me in the descriptions.

And hey, stress? You betcha. My fiance and I live on about 25 hours a week worth of minimum wage. We had to cut our food budget this year to make it so that I did feel so ridiculously guilty for not being able to give my family anything but the same mediocre homemade jewelry I have given them since I was about 13. My depression and anxiety make our relationship tumultuous, because you can’t really expect a 22-year old with 2 previous relationships under his belt to be able to take a step back and see through my actions and know what is going on. My mom insists on being the EXACT amount of bitchy and annoying to make me feel guilty for wanting her completely out of my life one week, and calling her because I’m sick the next.

Symptoms of Trauma:

  • Guilt
  • Shame
  • Sadness
  • Inability to concentrate
  • Anxiety, edginess, racing heartbeat
  • Numbness, withdrawing from people
  • Insomnia, nightmares
  • Muscle aches

Okay, that’s all but one…umm…This is not boding well, is it?

The nightmares? Oh yeah, those have been almost nightly for about a year now. Always different. Sometimes perfectly rational, sometimes not.

Muscle aches? My back causes me constant pain. All day. Every day. Doctors have no suggestions.

But trauma? From what, really? Even I can’t place what I am going through that is so awful, and I am often a big drama queen about my own shit.

There are more pressing things too. Things that I have never ever said to anyone ever. Things I think of that fit in perfectly with my “symptoms” but that I can’t find in my memory to place somewhere on the time line.

Sex hurts. A lot. Like, once I blacked out in the bathroom because we hadn’t had sex in a week or two and so it hurt even more than usual. Doctors have told me nothing more than, “Well he should be more gentle” by looking at where I tell them it hurts. Gentle hurts more because it is longer. The internet tells me that something being in there often enough should make it go away. Not likely, seeing how I have had sex plenty of times and it still hurts like hell. Or with lubrication. Yeah, thanks, but that’s not the problem either. The actual size of the hole is the problem.

It is getting worse. If I go 2 days without having sex, it will hurt every time for a month again. Right now, if I tried, I would bleed. Lots.

For a while we just..stopped. For a few months. Probably 4 or 5, because he is really the most understanding guy out there.

It got even worse. Every time we started to get any form of intimate, even if it was just kissing, I felt like I had been kicked in the crotch. My mind raced constantly, because, yeah anxiety makes me unreasonable. “what if I was circumcised as a baby and nobody told me?” (impossible I think, due to the dreaded “mirror test” and certain feelings it has emitted.)

By far, my only logical explanation is that something happened to me when I was a kid. I don’t remember much from my childhood, aside from small specific conversations and situations.

And that is the part that nobody knows.

I am completely convinced I suffered some kind of sexual abuse as a child. I don’t know by whom.

I don’t know where the question is in all of this. Maybe the question is “what the fuck do I do about this?” because I honestly don’t know.

I can’t talk to friends. I literally have none. I knew one girl who lived in this city, and we haven’t spoken in months. We haven’t made plans since the beginning of the year, or maybe early spring. We were never close enough to discuss this either.

People I know: My fiance, my mom, my family – grandparents, an Aunts, an Uncle, and a Cousin who is 12 years old – and technically a dad, but one who has been ignoring me for several months. All summer, at the very least.

None of these are people I could talk to about this, unless I had some sort of concrete evidence as opposed to this “bad feeling” I am letting disrupt my life right now. I tried about 10 different medications for anxiety and depression. Nothing got better. I gained half my mass in 3 months and am now even worse off.

The same thing that kept me alive last year between this time of year and the end of December is doing it again this year. I can’t kill myself. People have already started buying my birthday and Christmas presents.

What would they do with them if I died?

Prankster, your post breaks my shriveled blackened heart and I wish that I were closer so I could give you a big fat hug. I’m glad that you reached out to us here at Band Back Together. I hope that you can find some peace here. We can love you. We will love you. That’s why we’re all here.

A good lot of us understand trauma in one way or another and I’m sure you have plenty of people nodding their heads at your story. You’re spot on. You do need to talk about this.

As Your Aunt Becky, I take your words about suicide very seriously. I’m concerned. You’re worth more than that and no problems can swallow you up whole. We’re here to fight our dragons, and we’re not going to let you down. You are loved.

That said, there is work that we can help you with and work that has to be done with someone qualified to handle the sorts of traumas you’ve been through. If medication hasn’t helped, talk therapy may be the approach to try. A good therapist can help. Keep trying them until you find one you like.

There is no need to live in darkness when the light is so warm. You can be in the light. I promise.

If you are feeling suicidal, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:  1-800-273-8255

If it is an emergency, please go to the emergency room now. We don’t want to lose you.

Suicide is not the answer.

Much Love,

Aunt Becky (and her band of Merry Pranksters)

Sweet Baby, Hold Back Your Tears Now

by | Sep 24, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Compassion, Coping With Cancer, Family, Fear, Feelings, Forgiveness, Guilt, Hope, Love, Stress, Trauma | 0 comments

The first night after my breast cancer chemo treatment was awful.  Nugget sobbed hysterically in my arms, giving way to heavy sighs between her defeated attempts for true comfort until she finally fell asleep.  I cried, and cried, and cried.  Between the tears i apologized over and over to my sweet baby girl for being sick.

Last night was thankfully less painful.  She fell asleep with my mother and only had to be quietly lulled back down once.  Thank god for small miracles.

As for me, I felt pretty nauseated yesterday and today, and the meds to combat that make me tired.  Today, I really started to feel exhausted.  We went out for some quick errands this morning, but I’ve since spent the remainder of the day in bed.

Tears For Fears

by | Sep 14, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Caregiver, Coping With Cancer, Family, Fear, Feelings, Guilt, Stress, Trauma | 0 comments

I’m not even sure to where to start.  Remember that fever?  It finally went away.  Then it came back.  A second set of bloodwork later, the doctor still thinks it’s viral.  I get a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia.  Next is a CT scan,  then a biopsy.  The biopsy has to be done under general anesthesia by a mediastinoscopy, and a bronchoscopy is thrown in for good measure.  Now they think I have Hodgkins.

I know that there are readers who will get this so much more than others that have already heard it from me.  My biggest fear?  What if I have to have chemo and stop nursing my daughter?  It’s going to break her little heart (and mine) if she looks up at me, her mama, with her pleading, beautiful blue eyes and signs for her nursies and i have to say no.

I can’t say any more than that right now.  I just can’t.  This fear is crippling me and the tears won’t stop.

He Was Someone’s Son, Brother, and Boyfriend

by | Sep 12, 2010 | Adult Child Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Infidelity, Loss, Trauma | 1 comment

The Year Was 2009

I was 19 and had been attending college but, thanks to financial difficulties, had to leave. I moved back in with my parents and started working a minimum wage job, 50+ hours a week almost an hour away from home. Mid-December, in the middle of my shift, I got a tearful call from my mom asking me to come home. I left as soon as I could.

At home, I calmed my mom down so that I could understand her. She dropped the bomb: my dad had been having an affair for about a month, told her about it AND had no intention of stopping it.

I called into work the next day to be home with my mom to make sure she didn’t try anything stupid and when I needed a second day off, I was fired. Guess I got all the time off I needed, right?

I saw my dad about 3 times between the 14th and Christmas. The presents he got us he bought while he was with his girlfriend, and were wrapped in surgical paper from the office because he was there with her the whole time. My mom, younger sister, and I moved out the day after Christmas. It was mostly quiet for a few months, other than struggling through visits with my dad when I was so angry at him I could barely control it.

In March, my aunt came up to visit and we planned to visit my dad at my grandparents house one night. Because of a rumor, my dad ended up staying with his girlfriend that night. My sister and I stopped by dad’s on the way home, to find a police car sitting out front speaking to my dad, and my mom at the gas station across the street. ‘Supposedly’ my mom had tried to break in to get financial records and then tried to attack my dad when she realized he was there instead of with us. ‘Supposedly’ my dad then punched her and pushed her down a flight of stairs. April to June was a constant barrage of being lied to from both sides and listening to my parents bad-mouth each other.

On July 12th, 2009, I was headed home from a bonfire at a friend’s house. I was completely sober. Northbound on a north/south highway, there is a hill with an intersection about 100 feet from the crest. I looked down for half a second to put my cell phone in the cup holder. Wrong second to look down. There were two cars stopped at the intersection, going opposite directions, each making left turns. As soon as I saw the car in front of me, I slammed on the brakes. It wasn’t enough. My truck rear ended the car in front of me, which cause the car to spin around and hit the other car in the gas tank. They caught on fire. The car headed southbound had 4 teenagers in it, who all got out okay. The car I struck had a teenage girl driving and her boyfriend. She got out okay. He did not. He was pinned in the backseat and burnt to death. I can only pray that he was knocked out from the impact.

At 20 years old, I was responsible for someone’s death, a someone who was a son, a brother, a boyfriend. I was charged with vehicular homicide as a 3rd degree misdemeanor, which carries a 2 year license suspension, 2 years probation, 200 hours of community service, and 90 days in jail. I was given the maximum sentence.

In October, my dad and his girlfriend announced she was pregnant. I haven’t finished a single credit hour of school since the accident, despite my best efforts to keep going. I work for my dad because I have no way to get to another job. I have a jail sentence hanging over my head as a threat. I am afraid to go places in the town I live in because I don’t want to run into the family of the boy who died and cause them more grief. I was single for more than a year and a half. And you know what?

I love my life. I am happy. I have an amazingly supportive family. My relationship with my dad is better than it has been in 15 years. I am actually pretty good friends with his girlfriend now. I love my baby sister so much. I am in a relationship with a man who knows about the accident and loves me anyway. I am proud of myself, proud of how I have dealt with this traumatic situation that I was given, and that I’ve turned it into something positive.

I talk to young drivers about what can happen if they don’t take driving seriously. And they listen. I appreciate life so much more now than I did. I know it’s easy to be preachy and say “Oh, you just have to find the silver lining, blah blah blah.” Fuck that. A year ago I was at the lowest point I’ve been in my life, but I just kept trucking, because really, what other choice do you have? And things got better. It took time. And they definitely got worse before they got better, but it happened eventually.

My only advice is hang in there. And stay off your fucking phones while you’re driving please.

You will never get a text or call that’s more important than your child’s or your mother’s or your partner’s life.

PTSD And My Sinking Ship

by | Sep 6, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Child Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Faith, Family, Fear, Grief, Guilt, Help For Grief And Grieving, Hope, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Loss, Marriage and Partnership, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Romantic Relationships, Shame, Stress, Trauma | 0 comments

As women, we have to learn to listen to our gut. {Even when it’s telling us something we don’t want to hear.} And in March 2010 my gut was telling me one thing – loud & clear – “You must turn this ship around or it’s going to sink!”

I know, right? Clearly, something I didn’t want to hear.

You see, my son was nearly killed in an accident in July 2009 and eight months later, the bones were healing, but I was still broken.  And, something had to give.  I was bending and bowing under the heavy load I was carrying & I had to make a choice. The first choice that would turn my life, this ship, around was telling my husband the truth. I had to tell him of the awful thoughts that would fill my soul and haunt my nights.

I had to tell the man I love how often I had pictured him dead or dying, with our beautiful, innocent, children at his side. I had to tell him of the times I lied and told him I was sleeping downstairs, when really? I was sitting in one of the kids rooms crying. Picturing them dead. There is no marriage course that prepares you for that conversation. No book that tells you what to say when you’re wife is losing her mind.

I am blessed. And he reinforced what my heart knew and my mind couldn’t comprehend when he hugged me and held me and told me that I needed to call a doctor. {I knew in my gut that this was what I needed, but it was nice to hear him say it.}

You see, I was dying a slow death at the hand of post traumatic stress disorder. At the time I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that anxiety and fear were ruling my life. I was not living with intent.

Post Traumatic Stress had taken over & changed the woman I had once loved. It had stolen my husband’s wife & my children’s mother. I am a firm believer that life shouldn’t be the same after trauma, I expect that. I accept that. But, I also knew that I was not living and I didn’t want to settle for anything less. When you believe in your heart that one of your children is dying, is going to die, may die…there are no books or blogs or words or friendships that are inspiring enough to settle your soul.

And, even after I tucked my boy away in a bed, EIGHT long months later…safely upstairs, without a wheelchair, after a long day of school and baseball practice, I couldn’t shake my spirit of those haunting thoughts. Those reoccurring nightmares, I had when I was awake.

Nighttime would creep up on me like a thief and steal any sanity I had managed to build up in my reserves for the day. It was always worse at night.

The blackness would slip under the door frame and suddenly I would grow weak under the urge to hold my children tightly and scream into the thick air. The thoughts that filled my head were not that of a “sane” woman. I no longer recognized the woman that replaced me when night fell. The fear of losing my loved ones began to grow…and grow…and grow…

I didn’t tell the therapist everything right away. But after a week of visits, I let it all go. I told him that I pictured my baby dying of SIDS every time I closed my eyes. I would sit in her room in the dark on the floor and use my phone to light up her face so I could watch her breathe. I would rock in her room through the night and cry. And torture myself with the thought of finding her lifeless in the morning. A thought that wouldn’t let me close my eyes.

The blanket the boy brought home from the hospital would trigger phantom day-dreams that would leave me shuttering. I could hear him screaming in the night, in pain, even after the pain was gone. I would lay awake at night and watch my husbands’ chest rise and fall with each breath. I would picture how badly my heart would/will hurt when he dies, I would think of losing my parents…losing my aunts. Death consumed my thoughts.

I couldn’t drive in my car without sobbing uncontrollably. Every slammed brake or rushed traffic light would leave me in a puddle of doubt and fear. I was convinced someone was going to hit me, hit us, kill my family…

And, I knew this wasn’t right.

There were times when my mind would convince my heart that I was better off dead, rather than face the sadness the future holds. I would pray to please let me die before my children, my husband…and at times, I would even think “before my parents.” I would remember the agonizing pain of the unknown – as my son was air-cared to the local Children’s Hospital – and I would pray that the demon of memory be taken away from me.

But, as I told my therapist of my thoughts & fears…as I spoke of the anxiety that chased me in the night…the fear seemed to find a place where it could lay dormant. And I was fine with that. For now.

It’s been just over one year since the accident. And I still know that the dormant monster is waiting. Lurking…

And, there are times when I have talk myself off the ledge. Times when I feel the anxiety creeping back in. I accept the fact that life will never be the same. I accept the fact that it’s not suppose to. And, I know that with that change comes baggage, that at times will be too much to carry. But I also know I can face this demon head on, with the help of my family & friends…and even my blogging community.

I am working hard to turn this ship around. To make up for the ground that has been lost. To find my way back to the shore of safety and maybe, just maybe, even learn how to live on the sandy, white beaches of satisfaction.

Someday.