Therapy 2: Scared But Needed

I am scared sh*tless.  I'm sorry to be so coarse, but I'd be sorry if I wasn't.  I'm trying to describe the emotion and get the poison out.

You deserve to know.  Some of you.  Who are a part of my day-to-day life.  But it's so hard to tell you.  Hard to realize myself, but as I said, I'm a little more knowledgeable about cancer now.  But to see your faces after I tell you.  When you're struggling to come up with a response to "my wife has breast cancer".  Maybe you're thinking "thank God it's the cute, pink cancer" or more likely, "oh, my, what do I say to show I care?".  I'll be honest- I'm not looking at your faces.  I just want to get through the moment.  because it hurts.  It hurts to have to try to explain to you that it will be alright.  That I really think things are going to be ok.

I look forward to the day of surgery.  The day they get this thing (these things?) out of her.  Yeah.  They found another one.  But it's tiny and may or may not be cancerous.  And they swear it didn't come from the first one.  That it's been there all along and they didn't see it because they hadn't checked the other breast.  But she had an MRI, and they found #2.  And did a biopsy of it, just to be sure.  One way or the other.

And that scares me to hear.  Yeah, maybe I'm a negative person.  I expect the worst.  It's a coping mechanism to try to prepare yourself for the worst so that even if it happens you can be prepared.  But I'm ruing the day I became that way now!

However, as my wife was good enough to point out to me- she is in fact alive and well and feeling some fear of her own.  Maybe because SHE'S THE ONE WITH CANCER.  The one facing surgery.  Possible chemo.  And I'm ashamed it took her telling me for me to realize that's scary stuff.

And I need to figure out how to put on my big girl pants and be there for her and Lucy at the same time.  People (many) have said that I need to be Kath's tower of strength.  Yeah, only here's the thing- I don't feel like a tower of anything except maybe Jello.  Coincidentally God is described in the Psalms as just such a strong tower.  Something to think about.

So I need to turn over a new leaf.  Somehow set aside some of my fear for my own damn self and be there for her when she needs me.  Time to step up.

However, and here's where I turn a big corner:  while I do that, I need an outlet for my feelings and this is it.  This is where I plan to stow away my feelings of fear, inadequacy, and heart-gripping panic.  I hope and pray it will turn out to be a story of redemption and happy endings.  But I just don't know.  And that is the thing that is killing me:  I just get no guarantees.  No 100%.

I keep saying to Kath, to others, to myself:  be here NOW.  Right now we're ok.  Today everything is alright.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Seriously, who does?  'Cause I'd love to hear from them.  But whether the best or the worst or something in between is on the way, I've learned something:  I need to live this time the best I can.