It hit me this week and it started to soak in. My son had cancer.
Of course this is old news. Seems silly to get 'hit' by it now, but, I did.
He's been in 'permanent' remission for a year and a half. That means for a year and a half he has had no spinal taps, no infusions, no daily chemo-pills, no port-catheter in his chest. After almost four years of steroids, he no longer takes them every weekend. His anti-cancer regimen now consists of seeing the doctor every two months for a check up and blood labs, and taking care of his health by eating right and exercising. When he gets a fever, we don't have to go to the emergency room; he simply rests until it passes, like his siblings. He is completely normal as far as we can tell, but suddenly, I realized how sick he was.
I don't think I had time to really think about it. I know I didn't have time to feel it.
Part of having a child with cancer was knowing other parents who had children with cancer. Every time we were in the hospital for infusions, or with fever, I would meet a parent who had a child who was sicker, or who had lower chances of survival. Perhaps her child had a tumor that couldn't be removed, or his baby had spent the first six months of her life there on the 9th floor.
Her child was dying and not going home from the hospital, so my son's 80% chance of survival made me one of the lucky ones.
His child was getting radiation again, so I wasn't about to complain about another series of shots in the legs.
They had to drive from another state, so I couldn't talk about being tired, or complain about driving the 90 mile round trip to the hospital three times in a week.
Besides, it wasn't about me. His cancer was never about me. And there was always someone else who had it worse, so I put my feelings aside.
During the forty months of treatment, my son's father attended two outpatient visits. I was the primary caregiver; for whatever reason, he couldn't do it. This worked for me. I often wished he was able to support me, or at least ask his family who lived locally to help me, but he just checked out emotionally. I did what I needed to do. It came naturally to me. Taking care of my son was my instinct and it brought me joy to be able to do it. But that doesn't mean I always felt strong. One late night after more than two years into it, I spilled out some of my feelings about my day at the hospital. It was a rough day. I vented. I felt bad. I was tired. I complained. The word he used was 'bitching' and he told me to stop. I asked him to just listen. I asked him to love me, by listening. He said he was loving me. He said it was "tough love" and that was what I needed. I never tried again.
I already knew that because I was the only one, I had to be the strong one. I couldn't even talk about it, or even feel about it. 'Strong' was all I could afford to feel.
During the last year of the big guy's treatment, I officially became a single mother. I became close friends with someone what told me he could see strength in me, and was drawn to my ability to handle my stressful situation. I was at the beginning of my legal divorce, houseless, taking care of my son as well as four others, and yet I was cheerful and optimistic for the most part. He saw a strong woman. I didn't feel strong, I felt tired.
Fast forward to nine months after my divorce and depression clobbered me. I was seeing a therapist from the women's shelter, and she suggested I see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist offered meds, and I told her I would think about it, but I really didn't want to go that route. My plan was to get back to eating
I turned to my friend and made the confession that in truth I wasn't strong, and I wasn't able to handle the stress. I was no longer cheerful and I wasn't always optimistic. In short, I wasn't the girl he thought I was. I told him that I was considering taking medication for my depression. He assured me that he still saw that same girl, depressed or not, on medication or not, even if I couldn't see her.
I decided to not take any medication for the depression, and my therapist agrees that I made the right choice. I've taken more time in self-care and have been vocal about my depression, reaching out to a few close friends who know of my situation. I've been able to avoid that downward spiral that landed me in the psychiatrist's office.
Maybe this full circle is why the cancer suddenly hit me. Maybe now I'm ready to feel all those things that I didn't have the luxury of feeling while living them. I do believe though, that it is there as a cancer mom where I find who I truly am.
That was me in the waiting room alone while my son was in surgery getting the catheter placed in his jugular for chemo-therapy. That was me holding his foot and maintaining eye contact with him when he stopped breathing during one of his treatments, and that was me running as fast as I could, trying to keep up with the trauma staff as they raced his bed to the emergency room. That was me counting pills every morning and night until he was old enough and rehearsed enough to do it himself, and that was me waiting again on the same surgery floor when the port-catheter was removed at the end of three and a half years.
There I was, living every moment, telling myself that 'strong' was the only acceptable feeling because there wasn't time for anything else and because everywhere I looked there was someone who had it worse.
I can see how getting "hit" with the memory of son's diagnosis as if it were just happening is an opportunity for me. I now give myself permission to feel the hurt, the scared, the tired, and the lonely. In doing so, suddenly those feelings don't seem too overwhelming. More importantly, they don't contradict the strength that is always in me even when I don't feel it.
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