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Absence/From The Heart
So I’ve been gone quite some time. But as usual, I don’t want to spend too much time on that and I just want to dive into reflection and feelings concerning my mother. But I should mention some things. I felt compelled to start this blog, and it’s almost like, once I started it and wrote so much in the beginning, it relived a lot of what I was struggling with inside about all this, so I didn’t feel as compelled to write anymore. That and I’ve gotten busier and busier getting my life back together.
My life right now feels crazy. My mom’s appearing sicker and sicker from chemo treatment. I just received some very concerning news about a family member very close to my heart. And I’ve just seen 3 of the greatest films of the year within a 2 week period. My life feels so intense. It sounds silly but it’s true. I wouldn’t call it a dream, because I feel that implies something I desire. And I wouldn’t call it a movie because that implies a base of fiction, and this is all very real. Surreal would probably be the right word to describe this.
But let me just dive into free flowing thoughts about my mom and see what becomes of this.
I think about my mom and how I remember her when I was smaller. She had a lot of energy. She still does now, but it’s hidden and fighting under an ugly sickness, I don’t know how to address it properly. Cancer sounds so scary.
She’s lost basically all of her hair now. I tell her to shave it so it doesn’t look so....I don’t know...outstanding in a rough sort of way basically. But I think she’d like to hang on to all the hair she can.
It’s so hard for me to talk about my mom like this. She always seemed so strong to me, and she still does, but it’s hard to think about how this sickness is bringing her down, or at least trying to.
It’s been so long and I’d rather save time by not re-reading everything so far so I’m not sure if I’m repeating myself. But she’s putting all of us to shame. She’s still busy running around the house, keeping things in order and clean. What are we going to do without her. Us two males, my stepfather and me might become quite lost. My mom doesn’t want me to think that way of course, but I cannot help it.
Have I talked about how my mom is my best friend in the whole world? She is my whole world. I know that probably doesn’t sound exceptional. I’m sure most people are close to their mothers and I’m just another person. But this is all I can do as my own person, my own personal “catharsis” for all this as my sister said.
Maybe I should talk about what my mom was long when I was much smaller, in her younger years. She was very outgoing with all her female friends early on from what I can remember in my early adolescence. Actually, there were multiple times where I would cry so hard at night missing her and hoping she was okay when she stayed out late. I just couldn’t slip. My brain insisted on crying until she came home. That’s just one of many examples of my extreme attachment. It may be a bad thing, but it is what it is. I’m not going to shy away from it now, in this moment.
It’s been hard seeing her get sicker and sicker, suffering side effects from the chemo. But as long as it works, I believe this wil be all worth it. She had stomach problems, and then we got her medicine for that. She complained of severe throat pain and started losing her voice so I googled remedies for that on reddit like I do for EVERYTHING and like I’ve been doing for EVERYTHING concerning her and even my own personal life and daily remedies I need. And I saw that honey/ginger/and lemon tea seemed to be a popular soothing solution. So I made her some and it seemed to make a difference.
I know it seems small compared to everything else, but I don’t know, I don’t know what else to do. I feel so helpless so many times thinking about it. I’m ashamed I might not be a good son. That I’m not stronger. That I’m not more independent. I can’t help it. I’m not trying to make excuses and I can explain it but that’s not what I want this to be about. I wish I could make this go away for her with all of my might. Like I wish I could hug and squeeze the sickness out of her. I don’t know what to do. I feel so helpless. Sometimes I feel inadequate, but medication is help even/block that out.
Then she got a bloody nose recently and that’s worried us. But again, I just want her to be strong because I know chemo is the most effective form of treatment we basically have, so all my faith is in it. I just want to keep her weight up and her emotions high.
Not so long ago we got into an argument that I really regret. And I’ve vowed to never get into another argument with her again, no mater what, to keep her stress levels as low as possible.
I even want her to stop going outside because I know she can protect her vital immune system that way. When I secluded myself for almost a whole year on two different occassions, I NEVER got sick during them. I firmly believe this is because I never left the house and we keep our house very clean. All the various viruses and bacteria are all out there, in the wild atmosphere. But I honestly don’t think I’m going to get her to stop. She wants to stay active and for things to appear as normal and possible, and I totally respect that. I just really really want to protect her health.
I could talk about us going to the movie theater together, but idk. That’s not really striking me right now.
I might of mentioned this before, but something that’s been consistent about the way my brain has been dealing with this, is, a lot of times I’ll forget about this reality and like block out the fact that she’s sick and go about myself as if everything is fine, not thinking about it. I’ll sort of lose myself, like I really tend to do. And then, out of nowhere, like in some moments of boredom or stillness, it’ll hit me. How crazy it is to see my mom like this with such a grave sickness. The fact that I could very well lose her. The fact that the rest of my life could be without her completely. And then it just kills me. Like a punch in the gut, I lose the control or feeling of air or oxygen in my system and I sort of feel lifeless or like nothingness, a sort of loss of identity or purpose on top of the lack of them that I already have. And it only adds to the helplessness.
I really didn’t ever think things would be this way, that my life would turn out like this. I suppose I took my relationship with her for granted, but I don’t know, I just figured we still had some decades together. That eventually I would figure myself out and I could really start to pay my mom back and we could really start doing things together worthy of dreams. But now I don’t know if that time is ever going to come. It’s probably just best to look back on the life we had together for what it is. I don’t even know what to call it or how to classify or quantify it.
I should have been such a better son. As my mom said, this whole experience has been so “eye-opening”.
I miss my mom ALL THE TIME at work. ALL THE TIME. I just wish I could lay with her forever as she experiences this thing and rides it all out, however it ends. That’s why it’s so important for me to take her to chemo myself. I have to do this. I need to do a better job at creating moments with her while I still have her and I really am getting better rapidly and rapidly. It’s a funny thing what you do in desperate times when survival instincts really kick in. We should make simulators for that to help out people before things get seriously bad.
I’m fortunate enough to have sorted enough of my own problems out for this, to be able to be there for her in whatever capacity I am able to.
I want to get better and better at cleaning the house and upkeeping it, I’m going to have to, and I should have just in general. I’ve been cleaning the floors on my hands and knees and I’ve actually been enjoying it.
I really want my mom to write an epic list of everything important about life, all her advice, her guidelines, her tips, her ways. I want her to write a book. A guide to life for me. So she could still be with me when she’s gone. Maybe we’ll start to work on that, but I’m so busy.
I don’t know what else to say. I’m trying to get better, I really am, and I truly believe I’m making quite the head way. I miss her every moment I’m gone. When I drove to the theater in Chicago alone for the first time in a long time, I immediately felt her abscence in the car as I started to make the drive there. It was so quick and powerful, so noticeable and loud. It hurt so much. I seriously debated turning the car around and just staying home and hugging her. But I know she wouldn’t want me to do that. She would want me to live my own life and follow my own desires, as hard as that may be for me.
I’m getting tired unfortunately, but frankly I’m quite proud I finally got around to writing this. I told myself today at work that this was the first thing I was going to do after spending time with her when I got home from work until she fell asleep, if it’s the last thing I do. And I did it.
I just think about the punishment I’m seeing her body and mind and spirit take and I just have to block it out and fight the thoughts because if I really think about it, I might lose it. The reality of living a life without her in it at all is so mindblowing, it just leaves me with no air, that’s the best way to describe it. It feels like this huge black hole or void engulfs my whole chest/rib cage inside of me. I want to be a better son, a better person, and I am working on it. So far, so good.
Hopefully I don’t take a long break from writing here again. I’d like to get more specific or focused next time, but I just really wanted a legit refresher at least and I think I got it. I still have to go into more depth about what she was like when I was much smaller, a child. You guys, please ask specific questions to help spark ideas from me, to bring it out from me, and to keep me writing.
I don’t know. It feels like such a crazy ridiculous time. And I’m always worried that my anxiety will come back and I’ll shut off and seclude once more, but luckily it hasn’t really these past couple months especially. You have NO IDEA how truly grateful I am for that. And you have no idea how grateful I am for everyone’s support. I want to send a special shout out to my close internet friends Rosa, Chelsea, and Lily who were there for me from the first day I found out about my mother’s sickness and have always made themselves available for me throughout this whole time and have never really faltered. And a big thanks to each and every one of my family members for everything they’ve done, the gifts they bring, and the love they give. It’s invaluable. And to my co-workers who know my mom, thank you for your kind words and concerns.
Alright, I’ll leave for now and just be happy that I did this.
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Telling work friends...
Alright, I’m gonna try to write tonight FINALLY. I could talk about my absence on here, but I really just wanna focus all my energy on writing about things concerning my mom and her sickness and jump into things right away.
So, as I mentioned, I started a new job, well technically it’s an old job, but I am returning back to it. It’s a store my mom used to work at so everyone there knew my mom first and then they got to know me.
This was the first time I was officially returning in 4 years. I had stopped in the store probably once a year in between, but this would be the first time everyone who was still there would be seeing me with the news of my mom being sick.
I’ve been there a few days now, so it’s kind of hard to remember EXACTLY what it was like talking about it with the first few people, since emotions and feelings are temporary states of mind.
But I remember it being very hard to talk about, but I still tried for the most part. I kind of just rambled on about it or whatever thoughts came to me naturally kind of like I do here and have been doing lately.
I tried to tell everyone that she’s been doing good, because she at least appears so, but I also mentioned how she could just be hiding her pain so no one like me worries about her.
And my brain kind of searches for ways to explain to people how much my mom means to me, but I really think no words could possibly do it justice, so that’s very frustrating.
And at a certain point, I started really debating mentioning it at all, as if I’m mentioning it for attention or something. I don’t want it to look like that. So it’s a combination of that and it being hard to talk about which is why I haven’t been talking about it much lately.
But when I first showed up there, everyone who knew immediately asked me about her and how she was doing. I still feel awkward about people there who may know her who have no idea. Maybe I’ll bring it up naturally sometime to those I haven’t talked to about it.
And then there’s the new people I don’t even know and what it’s like in general
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Chemotherapy
So my aunt gave me some pointers yesterday about this blog. They included talking about my experience taking my mother to chemotherapy, which I’ll do today. Also, she suggested I keep these blogs shorter which is going to prove very difficult for me since I love writing so much, so we’ll see how that goes. And lastly she suggested I research Chemotherapy as well for this, which I’ll also do. I firmly believe in the approach of always starting with the hardest part first of any task to make the journey less arduous, so I’ll start with the research.
So I’ll just mention the information as I read about it and understand it myself. From what I understand, chemotherapy, simply put, is the process of using anti-cancer drugs to help fight the cancer and/or prolong the life of a cancer patient. Usually there is a combination of drugs involved. The drugs are given through an IV to put it directly in the bloodstream, that way it insures that the medicine is distributed across the entire body. What these drugs more or less do is inhibit cell growth or kill certain cells in a effort to kill the cancer. Unfortunately, other cells die in this process causing all the harsh side effects associated with this treatment.
The dose of the chemotherapy drugs is important because dosing too little will prove ineffective and dosing too much will make the patient sicker. So they measure the patient’s body weight to determine the proper amount.
Chemotherapy involves the depression of the immune system which means red and white blood cells drop in count. Side effects include nausea, vomiting, and weight loss, all of which I’ve witnessed first hand happen to my mother. This also means we have to try and prevent my mother from catching a cold or fever or anything like that. I imagine I’ll start to panic a little if or when that happens, but all I can do is my best.
Cancer is basically the uncontrolled growth of cells with malignant or dangerous behavior. Chemotherapy, as mentioned before, uses drugs that inhibit fast dividing cells in a effort to combat the disease.
Chemotherapy was essentially discovered from using mustard gas in WWI AND WWII, in which it was discovered that certain chemicals could effect and attack certain blood cells, so it was presumed to be a viable treatment approach to combat the nature of cancer.
That’s basically the broad overview of chemotherapy. A more detailed explanation would involve all the different deliveries of the drugs and the variety of drugs being used, but I don’t think it’s necessary to go into all of that. I think the mechanism of action is the most important thing. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.
Now I’ll go into the experience of taking my mom to a chemo- treatment:
I woke up early probably because I was subconciously motivated by the fact that I knew I was going to have to take my mother to the hospital that day. I wasn’t sure what time her appointment was, but I was hoping it was early so I wouldn’t have to sit with the anxiety of it throughout the day. The appointment was at 8:30am an hour away in the area I grew up in at the hospital I was born at. I just wanted to get out and go so I believe I skipped a hearty meal, which would come back to bother me later.
I don’t remember anything significant about the drive there but luckily my anxiety really wasn’t bad at all. I think I was monitoring my anxiety a lot during the beginning so I didn’t really think of evaluating the hospital from the get-go like I had wanted to. But overall I had no complaints about the place, and was overall pleased. My mom thought the service was slower than the previous hospital she had been treated at.
Once we made it to her treatment chair/bed, I started to get settled and feel more comfortable. Part of me was shocked at the apparent simplicity of the procedure (all she had to do was sit comfortably in this chair/bed while the chemicals were intravenously delivered into her system through her arm), but part of me also wasn’t shocked because I figured at this current time in history, medical treatments would be as simplified and to-the-point/effective as possible. All the chemicals being delivered to her were ironically transparent as water. But after researching the chemicals being used in the process, you would understand the mechanism of actions of the these advanced drugs were anything but simple.
My hunger began to bother me like I mentioned before, but luckily there was coffee near us that I used to suppress my appetite since I was still too anxious to explore the hospital to get food. My mom kept urging me to go get food while she waited but I wanted to hold out as long as possible because I knew it was going to be a long day. The nurse informed us that three different liquid bags of chemicals would be dispersed into her for the entire treatment. The first bag took 30 minutes to an hour, the second bag took 3-4 hours, and the last bag took another 30 minutes to an hour. I’m assuming the drug that took the longest was the most powerful. I was astonished at the bright and happy mood my mom carried throughout the entire time, especially seeing as though she was under the use of absolutely no medication whatsoever other than the current chemo treatment that was happening to her. Whereas I struggle with my mood a lot more even with the use of certain medicines. I wish I had the type of spirit my mom does sometimes, but I always look up to her and people like her because of it. She was a very good and happy patient, I’m sure all the nurses at the hospital noticed, but maybe they’re used to it.
Eventually when I could tell my mom was getting hungry, I worked up the courage to roam and explore the hospital myself in an attempt to find this wonderful cafeteria my mom kept mentioning. Surprisingly my anxiety was held at bay and I felt relatively confident roaming alone, even when I managed to get a little lost and needed to ask for guidance a couple times. My strength could have came from being motivated to go and get my mom food, I know I definitely cared about her hunger more than mine.
Eventually I found the cafeteria and it was as cool as my mother had spoke of. But, I noticed my anxiety elevated just a tad while in the presence of more people, so I made the wise decision of not taking too much time to think about what to order and just order the first full type of meal I could see. The chicken and bacon sandwich melt was at the top of the list, so that’s what I went with, for the both of us. When I got condiments, I got barbecue sauce for myself but I had no idea what my mom would want, only that she would want something. In hindsight, I should have just went with ketchup, everyone’s typically happy with ketchup for this sort of thing. Sure enough when I brought the food back to her, she was pleased but mentioned the desire of having mayo with her because the food was on the dry side as I suspected it might be. I should note that it was much easier to find my way back to her treatment spot since my mind must have subconciously remembered all the moves I made in the first place to get there. I’m sure this is an evolutionary trait for survival despite my lack of strength in the direction department. The other foods my mom ate during this 6 hours treatment was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, red jello, milk, and apple juice all served on the house by the hospital.
The wait for me wasn’t as bad as you would think, though it did get a little trivial near the end, but nothing I would sweat. I was more worried about my sick mother more than anything. Since my phone is half-broken, I didn’t bother to bring it with me to the treatment. But my mom brought her iPad and had her iPhone, both of which I used to entertain myself while I waited. Next time I’ll remember to bring a charger though, but the first time around, the hospital was gracious enough to let us use one the hospital had. I also messaged people I’ve been close with during this process which included my friends Rosa and Lily, as well as my friend Madeline’s mom, Pam. Rosa I’m assuming was busy with work, but I was able to correspond with Lily and Pam which was really nice. I suppose there’s a lot of people I could have been in contact with during this day, but my anxiety is very tricky when it comes to these sort of things. And my OCD would become obsessed about whether or not I texted everyone or enough people in my life, so I tried to keep it simple and stuck with the close friends I talk to online, since I didn’t have my own phone anyway.
My mom used the television in our little space/room to keep herself entertained. I remember watching a lot of talk shows and remarking how insane it was the amount of talk shows there were. There was at least 3 different versions of “The View” I remember, including shows called “The Real” and “The Talk”. I don’t see how those shows weren’t copyright infringement on the View, maybe they had to pay a royalty probably. We also watched the Wendy Williams show. What my mom was really eager to find was the Ellen Degeneres show because she loves her so much. I was worried we wouldn’t find it and miss it, but eventually my mom found it just in time.
And that’s pretty much how we passed the time and how it went. I fidgeted in my chair now and then and eventually reduced myself to laying down using two chairs and my mom sat calmly and patiently basically the entire time. And the short Asian nurse would come every now and then to check on her and to switch the chemical bags. She had to put on all this protective equipment first in order to do it, but I wonder why I didn’t have to wear any protective equipment if I was next to my mom too. My mom said it was because the nurse was actually the one touching all the chemicals being dispersed into her.
Well my aunt wanted me to keep this as short as possible, so I should stop here. They took everything out of her and we quietly left the place. My mood was fine overall, but I did notice a drop at some point during the car ride home and I began to desperately want to be in the comfort of our own home. I suspect it was either the coffee crash or seeing myself in the mirror which had accidentally happened and is currently a problem for me because of my weight. But I tried my best to keep my spirits up in order to be there for my mom, whatever she needed. But she’s a strong woman and she proved it that day. Some details I’m remembering now is that the hospital was at first empty when we got there and the wait wasn’t long at all, on the eighth floor, what looked to be the highest floor of the hospital, or part we were at. By the time I had worked up the courage to venture to the cafeteria, the hospital had become a lot more populated. And lastly, they gave my mother this patch injector post-treatment to help her immune system, the drug’s called Neulasta. Apparently it stimulates the bone marrow and this causes immense pain that my mother has currently been dealing with the past few days. She had to wear the patch for 28 hours, in which at the 27th hour, the injector would disperse the medication into her system. Then I had to take the patch off myself and saw her fragile arm for the first time in a long time, which I’ll never forget.
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Excuse the choppy, unedited nature of this blog. I’m not really concerning myself with structure or quality to the upmost regard or detail since I’m primarily writing this for expression and simple documentation. I don’t need this blog to win any contests, awards, or anything, or even warrant any large attention. I’m sending this to the important people in my life anyway and that’s all that matters. So thank you for your time as always. I’ll try to improve my quality though when I’m more motivated to write.
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Part Two
Sorry, I’m bad at titles because I’m still trying to get a feel for how I want this whole project to be.
To be honest, I don’t feel as compelled to write about my mom as I did yesterday. Perhaps writing that long post yesterday was some sort of release for me so that I don’t feel as pressured anymore. Regardless, I had really wanted to make this a daily post kind of thing. But I might change that plan. I might just save this blog for only times that I feel really compelled to share feelings or thoughts about my mom or this whole situation.
I honestly just want to spend more time with her right now and watch a horror movie with her because it’s October/Halloween time. We might watch the Exorcist. So I want to make sure I post today at all so it’s not on my mind while I’m spending time with her. Maybe the format I’ll start with is just a preface of how our day went to let you know where my mind is at least, with each and every blog post, give you guys some context. And then I’ll move on to a couple or a few topics about my mom or this whole process.
So today I want to touch on her childhood, I don’t know how far I’ll go, and I only know so much anyway. Maybe I should ask her about it more. It’s sad that that’s not something we think to do with our parents as a normal thing, kind of like how families don’t sit and eat together anymore. Or maybe that’s just my family. And then maybe I was going to get into what it was like being raised by her, but now that sounds like a lot for only the second and one post. But first I’ll start with our day.
My mom got up really early. I can never tell when she’s going to wake up. Sometimes she sleeps in when she’s sore or doesn’t feel good and sometimes she’s up bright and early at the crack of dawn. Today was one of the ‘crack of dawn’ days. Myself, I kept waking up throughout the night as I’m usually prone to do. Maybe having some black tea earlier in the day didn’t help. I tried to wake up early with her, but I just didn’t feel up to it, so I slept in more. I actually had such a great day yesterday, perhaps that’s why I was so inspired to write about her, that I actually had skipped my evening medication and I thought I was alright, feeling fine. But today, I actually woke up feeling odd, with an uncommon sense of anxiety, a great deal of it I wasn’t used to lately. So I suspected skipping the medication was a big mistake. Even though I was uncomfortable and bothered, I wasn’t worried. I took my morning dose of the day and eventually it kicked in and my day started to turn around.
I pushed myself to go with her to the grocery store so I could help her lift all the groceries so she didn’t have to stress her body at all. My anxiety was high there and the place was unusually crowded for midday Monday, or maybe I was just sensitive to everything. She dropped me off with the groceries and decided to make one quick stop on her own to pick up the remaining supplies. I waited to start feeling better and eventually when I did, I started to clean the house for her as she did things in the kitchen as she usually does. I should add my mom is adorably obsessed with keeping the kitchen spotless and clean. And after my workout, we made sloppy joe’s together just now. And that’s been our day. The weather’s been ugly and I suspect that has a lot to do with how our day has gone.
As far her childhood. Well my mom is the second youngest of eight children. 6 girls and 2 boys. From what I’m told my grandma lived very poor, even when raising these children. But from what I understand, a lot of parents from my generation grew up this way. It must have been such a different time. So many families had so many kids in one family, whereas nowadays couples aren’t having that many kids. Must have been such a different time.
I should probably learn more about how she was growing up. I know she was close with both her brothers. She was also close with the youngest sister of them all, my aunt Annabelle.
If I’m being honest, I don’t think my mom performed the best in school, but that never mattered to me because she has one of the biggest hearts I know of from a person. She’s showered me with plenty of love, which I’ll elaborate on some other time, more than I could ever ask for. All of my different friends throughout my childhood would constantly remark at how nice and understanding my mom was, how generous and giving she was. And also how great her home cooking was. I am quite blessed to have a talented home chef as a mom. Just now thinking and mentioning that has me emotional about the fact that I might lose that forever. I would miss her cooking so much. There’s nothing quite like it to me. But she’s taught me as much as she can in the kitchen, I just have to keep at it as with anything.
I’m not sure at what age exactly she meant my father. You’ll have to forgive me that it’s hard to talk about my father since we haven’t had the best relationship for many many years, there is no relationship rather with him. But I know she was very young. She became pregnant with my one and only older brother at the age of 18 or 19. My dad was much older than her, there’s a 10 year age gap between the two of them, but that’s not really shocking as girls are typically attracted to the wisdom and confidence of older men, among other things like security.
They both worked in retail and I’m sure that’s how they met. Oddly enough that’s exactly how my mom met my stepdad as well. Just the way things go I guess. Personally I can’t date someone I work with, that’s never worked out.
I guess I’m getting ahead of myself and should make sure I cover her childhood. I’ve heard constant stories of how stern and aggressive my grandfather was to my mom and all my aunts and uncles. I would probably scare you with the stories I’ve heard with how we would punish them severely. But then again, I always hear this from parents of kids from my generation, that it was so much harder and disciplined when they were growing up. It’s almost like our parents were scarred from the brute force style of raising children back in the day that they compensated by being so nice and kind to us, spoiling us, and that’s what makes us so different from other generations and is partly why we have some of the problems we have, like living in our parents’ house abnormally longer than generations previous.
It’s funny, it’s a lot easier for me to write about our day today than to reflect and analyze her childhood. Maybe that goes to show you I don’t know much about it. That sounds kind of sad but I really don’t mean for it to be that way. I should probably ask her about it to make this project more accurate and detailed.
But I think I touched on all the important parts to give you guys at least an idea. She was in a large poor family of 8, 10 including my grandma and grandpa. Eventually my grandparents separated, but never divorced and my grandpa moved back to Mexico, even though he was a U.S. citizen which is how my Mexican grandma gained citizenship. My grandfather was very brutal in raising all of them from what I can tell or have been told. She wasn’t the best in school, but she managed. She met my dad at the young age and got pregnant so that stopped all her education pretty much. I’m sure she had a fair amount of boyfriends growing up. People have told me she’s a very beautiful woman. But then again, with how strict my grandparents were, you never know.
And that’s most of it, or the big things. Maybe next time I’ll just tell you more about her, like the things she likes to do, maybe some experiences we’ve shared together, I don’t know.
I sure hope I’m in the mood to write more tomorrow. At the very least I hope I wake up early enough to have a longer day to give myself more of a chance at falling into the mood to write a lot at some point. But I’ll end this for now. Thank you for your time as always. Have a pleasant evening.
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I guess I should title this “Introduction” huh
I don’t even know what to tag this. Ya’ll should give me tag ideas so this reaches the right people. I’m going to send it to everyone important to me anyway.
Where to begin?
Um, well, the way I typically tend to write and because I love writing so much, I tend to write an overwhelming amount that no one wants to read. I don’t really know what to do about that. I try to be as short as possible but I want to include every detailed and exact thought so you could possibly get the best and most accurate picture. That’s probably impossible no matter how many words I use or which ones, which leads me to my other point. If you can’t tell yet, I have a very busy mind which makes it very hard to stay focused. It usually feels like the first thought I have has 5 thoughts attached to it and those 5 thoughts have 5 thoughts each, and so on and so forth. But I really need to stay focused at the topic at hand and why I’m starting this all in the first place: my mom.
I should stick to making this as much like an introduction as possible, whatever that means. Maybe I should make it “attention-getting” so it hooks all of you and you don’t give up on me already and want to keep reading, however I’m supposed to do that.
There’s so many things to cover. And sometimes I feel more comfortable opening up more than other times. There’s what it felt like growing up with my mother, my thoughts on how she raised me. There’s what I know about my mother’s childhood. There’s what I know about the sickness she has, I should probably mention that, she has Stage 3 Cervical Cancer last I checked. It’s really hard for me to stay up to date because I’m so scared of any potential bad news. I know I should be stronger and get as much information as I can, I’m working on getting better, I think I am.
I guess one of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog was so everyone I cared about could see what exactly is going on in my head and how I feel about such a dramatic thing happening to one person. Some people have asked me how all of this has made me feel and how have I changed so hopefully this project addresses that as best as possible. Writing was always a strength of mine so I’d much rather prefer to tell this whole story with the written word more so than anything else like pictures and video, though I’m sure that would be more convenient to follow. Maybe I’ll add that if I ever feel more comfortable or feel that this is lacking at all. There I go trailing off again.
Maybe I should simply just start off with all my natural thoughts tonight and keep it simple and worry about everything else another day.
It seems like most of the time I feel okay blocking all the scariness of this whole situation out of my head and I’m somehow able to go about my day as normal, taking care of my dog, checking in on all of my online friends. But then it’ll hit me out of nowhere, the thought of losing my mom and having her be gone forever, never to return. I really don’t like when that happens.
I feel so helpless. Like I mentioned before, I should probably be reading as much as I can about cervical cancer and how to best fight it if I really cared about keeping her around. Sometimes I feel like a bad son for not doing any of this sooner. It’s just not so simple like that. And this makes me want to mention the dark periods of my life before I got this news, but I’ll probably save that for another time. I’ll just say that I truly don’t mean to be a bad son. There’s just certain flaws I have that make it hard to be the exact way I want to be. But I’ve recently started to get a lot better. I was able to take her to her first chemotherapy appointment in her second round of overall chemo. This chemo is supposed to be more intense than the previous one even though the results so far doesn’t make it appear that way. I could go on and on about that recent experience. Maybe you guys should message me and tell me what exactly/specifically you’d really like to know about all this, about me, my mom, her illness, or anything related. I could work on finding out more about a certain aspect and you guys can kind of guide me in that way of coping or what I should be doing. I’ll listen to anything at this point, I have nothing to lose.
Honestly I feel like I’ve already expressed enough at this point but I suppose I’ll let my free flowing thoughts flow just a tad bit longer.
So I feel helpless. And there’s so much I have to do and maintain. I constantly have to take care of my dog, I have to prepare for the job I’m starting soon. In my depression, I put on a lot of weight I need to lose so I’ve been dieting and recently just started exercising daily. Then I feel compelled to check certain things online, on my computer. I should probably cut that out as it seems the least important and I suspect gradually I will spend less and less time doing that. That’s just to name a few things. But I really should add researching this cancer to the list. It’s just so hard because I’m so scared to read any details about it. Cancer seems so lethal and loud to me. Just today I finally stumbled upon some paperwork my mom was given from what looks like one of her first exams/meeting about the cancer.
This is where I learned it was officially Stage 3. I read about the details of the first surgery she had which failed to eliminate the cancer. I saw diagrams a doctor must have drawn about how they were going to enter her cervix, I think that’s what it’s called. I saw all the side effects and symptoms she was going to have from the surgery like fatigue, blood clots (that really scared me). Just a whole lot of scary information.
But really what can I do? I’m open to suggestions. Everyone’s just telling me to spend time with her and stay with her which I’ve been doing. I’ve always spent a lot of time with her though. We watch every movie together. Seriously, I’ve seen an exceptionally large amount of films and I can’t think of a single one I haven’t seen with her yet. It’s a struggle to pick a new movie to watch at this point.
Without doing further research, I really feel like the essential or bulk of the load is all in the doctor’s hands and the medical technology of this day and age, at least what her insurance can afford. I really hope her company takes care of her, she really deserves it and I know how this world can be sometimes.
Now I just thought to mention my thoughts of witnessing chemotherapy for the first time but maybe I should save that for another post.
The main thing I wanted to cover tonight was how the feeling of losing her really hits me out of nowhere. Like most of today I was going about my day accomplishing things with relatively no complication, but then all of a sudden the thoughts of losing her crept in and took over and made me want to do all this or to start reaching out to some of you.
I guess I should mention part of the reason I started this blog was so I didn’t have to privately message all of you separately.
I should also mention I haven’t messed around with the appearance of this blog yet because that didn’t seem as important to me as writing all this. That’s one reason I chose tumblr because I knew it was simple and I could do this. I had tried using WordPress some weeks/months ago but it was way too involved just to create the layout of the blog when all I wanted to do was express my thoughts and feelings in written form.
Re-reading everything I’ve written so far, I’ll just mention a couple things that I was just reminded of mentioning specifically. First, concerning her stage of cancer. I’m scared to look it up right now but I might do it later but I think the last time I checked, there’s a 66% 5 year survival rate when it’s Stage III. I could just be in denial and being optimistic, but that wouldn’t make sense because overall I’ve been pretty pessimistic because that’s usually how I am or what my experience has taught me. I know I shouldn’t be that way. Everyone’s telling me to be optimistic. And maybe because I don’t want to be wrong about the 66%, that’s why I don’t want to look it up again. What difference would it really make anyway? It’s just a percent. At the end of the day I just need her to survive all this. I don’t think I should consider my life without her until I know that’s for certain. Am I right about that?
The second thing I’ll mention...well I just forgot it, but the thing that took it’s place is something I mentioned already, why I really wanted to start this blog. Because there’s so many people in my life I want to reach out and text when I’m feeling down about this and it’s crazy to write a personal message to each of you especially when I mentioned how busy we all are and since I trust you all basically the same, I might as well just put everything in one spot for all of you to read at your leisure if you care to. I say there’s a lot of people in my life, but there also kind of isn’t. But there’s enough of you where it feels crazy to try to write each and every one of you separately. So I can just share the link of this blog with all of you, my family, friends, online and elsewhere, and if you care, you’ll bookmark this and check on it every once in awhile. Ideally I would want to make a blog post every night like a journal of my daily thoughts, but like I said how busy things can get, who knows. But those of you reading this, do me a favor a remind me to express myself here about my mom and our relationship and this whole situation if I ever fall behind because I really want to do this.
I’ll leave it there and hopefully this was enough to not make you feel like you wasted your time. If you feel that way, I suppose you might as well not read any further. If you care, stay tuned.
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