The ‘Coles notes’ version of our day
Woke up in a panic…garbage day. Crap.
Outside at 6:30 in the morning sorting garbage- hoping that it wasn’t a sign of how the day was going to be (trash).
Organized medication.
Showered (not joking- it happened).
Went to Starbucks (Because I don’t drink enough of it at hospital and I was too tired to make coffee)
Drove downtown (I hate traffic)
Sat in the waiting room for 2 hours
Finally…. Loggie got treatment.
Drove home.
Organized medication
Worked in the garden for a bit..(loved the vitamin D.)
Ate dinner.
Bathed the kids.
Organized medication.
Went to bed. Couldn’t sleep.
Got up.
Blogged.
Other than the treatment portion, it was a pretty ‘normal’ day. I did normal things almost all day and I was telling myself “OK, drinking coffee, normal. Driving- normal. Gardening- normal….” but nothing felt normal.
It is weird when you have these kind of days. When every single moment of the day is filled with thoughts about what has actually happened.
HOLY SHIT- MY CHILD HAS CANCER.
I woke this morning knowing I’d dreamed about treatment. I just couldn’t remember what it was. Cancer is always on my mind.
I sat today in the waiting room and played my favorite ‘Guess who is getting treatment today-‘ (although some times it was very obvious) but once I figured out who it was (the nurse calling them in was a dead give away). I began to wonder what type of cancer they had. What their story was. How long they’d battled. How they were dealing with it. Did anything feel normal to any of them anymore?.
One man who was wearing no pants from the waist down (my guess prostate) was clearly in a state of total disillusionment and shock. I listened as a poor technician explained over and over again what it meant to have a full bladder and how and when he needed to drink his water. Drinking water was no longer normal.
What a strange awkward dance we do with illness. It seems to me that most people cope by trying to guarded, disconnected. They can sit in the same room with others who have the same disease, half naked and not say a word.
‘Don’t look over there, there is a little girl. Oh my god, that means she has cancer. Don’t stare. Oh god she seen me look, look away stare at the floor. Always look at the floor.’
I thanked god that we had Brody with us today. If it weren’t for him being all cute and innocent- we would have been avoided like the plague.
Brody doesn’t ‘get’ that part of cancer. Cancer has been Brody’s whole life. He is comfortable with awkward. He has never known the world with out cancer, so when he politely asked a man if he’d put on his ‘pajamas” back on so he could watch 101 dalmatians with him. I had to laugh. Brody had no idea that the man had to change out of his pants into a robe so he could get his treatment, I was just happy he knew that it would have been totally inappropriate to watch TV with a half naked old man.
The man told him that it wasn’t PJ’s he was wearing and left it at that. Brody replied “ah you must be gettin’ your treatment too- you don’t have to take your pants off yet- It is a long wait you know, you can almost watch a whole movie and you might get cold”
The innocence. Radiation to Brody means half naked old men in Robes, and almost watching an entire Disney movie except the ending…and that is it.
No worry, no contemplating normal, no focusing energy or sending reiki. No praying so hard that you feel like you are going to puke.
No trying to come to terms, or wondering ‘what if’. Instead he has pure and innocent impatience for all of it.
Isn’t that cancer thing gone yet? Why do we have to drive down town again? what the heck is taking so long?
And truly I guess that is the most normal thing about cancer. It is just the ultimate test of patience and faith. Not what will happen, and of not having control of the outcome you have to simply wait and see- how the new meds work, what the next doctors appointment will bring, if the blood work, the MRI, or the radiation is doing its job. Whether the next spell of nausea will start the day or end the day. We do a lot of waiting and for someone who is a type A like me- it is torture.
But all good things to those who wait. Right?
Nana made Logan a quilt and brought it to her today. It was a nice treat to end this totally, normal, abnormal day. Tonight as I wrapped her up in it, I couldn’t help but think how similar a patchwork quilt is to life.
It is remarkable how something so beautiful and can be made from…well scraps.
Leftovers of beautiful fabric that are too small to do anything else with. Amazing how so many different and usually mismatched pieces can be sewn together and it can seem like they were always meant to be perfectly paired
Cancer is really just one small scraps on Loggie’s quilt of life. A quilt can’t be made without numerous pieces of fabric which just like life some of those pieces aren’t as significant as other.
