Watching other people die from cancer

I've been making an effort, although incredibly delayed, at getting out thank you cards to all my friends and family for graduation stuff, and a big part of trying to do that is hunting down everyone's address. While I wrote out invites to the parties, I left it to my parental units to send out invites, as I feel like the party was a lot more for them than me. I did my thing w/ my friends, the parties were all about showing me off, and really just getting the family together. But I'm digressing. On the address sheets my dad gave to my mom, he had also marked down the head count as to who was going to be at the party. As I was going through, I started noticing names of cousins and their guest count weren't at the party, and I knew what was coming on the last page:

Mary Sharky+ Charlie+ 2 guest 4

It was one of those moments that catches you right in the throat. Where you quickly look for someone on g-talk that you purge on, but realize no one would probably understand why you were upset.

Two days before graduation, my Aunt Mary passed away from cancer. I don't know the type, the family isn't that close to keep me up to date and informed. Nor did anyone tell me she was sick again, and they even waited to tell me that she even died. Like they waited over a week, and then my dad told me casually during dinner at a restaurant. And he only told me because he though I should know not to expect her and the cousins at the graduation party. Yeah, my family is sort of weird like that, and not in a good way.

Aunt Mary hasn't been the only cancer death in recent years. Back in 2003, before I was even diagnosed, my Godfather/Uncle Butch passed. They first found his cancer in his neck; that didn't help me much when they were telling me that I too had cancer in my neck. But upon dragging details out of my mom, it looks like he had kidney cancer, and it was most likely due to agent orange exposure in Vietnam. He was sick for a few years, and during that time we had managed to close a gap that grows when you don't ever see your family. He was always there for me when I was little; staying with me and my mom as my dad went out on six month cruises. He was also that glue that tends to hold a family together.

Just before he got sick, he ran into his high school sweet heart; they fell in love... again.

And then suddenly he was sick. The strongest of the family needed constant care and assistance. The chemo whithered him down, and I remember them having to drain excess fluid in his stomach. So then Thanksgiving comes along, his favorite holiday, and I made my trek out to Philadelphia a day earlier than my mom. And I had to sit in a kitchen and listen to my grandmother and I forget who else, I'm pretty sure it was his girlfriend, bitch and complain about how much they hated taking care of him. How he was just a big baby, and unappreciative, and wouldn't do everything that needed to be done. I vaguely even remember the "I wish he would just die" phrase being said. And all I could do was really just sit there... I lack the ability to stand up to my family and how they tend to treat/talk about people. I'm pretty sure that day has left a few lasting impressions on me. I never told my mom about the expereince.

The day before Christmas Eve, we got a phone call that he wasn't doing well. My mom told me that the next day I needed to go up to Philly to help take care of things. Mind you, at this point I was in Virginia Beach, about 6 hours away, and the entire rest of the family is in Philly. Being an incredibly stupid little 20 year old, and not want to have to endure a repeat of Thanksgiving, I wasn't happy about that idea. I remember driving off to my boyfriend's house, raging mad that no one else in the family was doing anything, and because, well I just didn't want to go. He died the next day. I don't think I ever quite forgave myself for being so self-centered that night.

After having a cancer of my own, I can look back at that experience and can see exactly what I could have done to be more helpful, and be more supportive, and hell even be more defensive. And at the same time I look at my Aunt Mary, and realize, I barely reached out to her at all over the past few years.

Just before I got sick I forced my dad to go to Thanksgiving with his family with me. It was the first time in about 10+ years that I'd seen anyone on his side of the family. I think it was that summer, only months after I had surgery that I saw the whole family at a party, and I learned that Aunt Mary was sick.

I don't know. It just sort of weighs on you. On here, we all turn to each other for support. We look for other people who know what we are going through, etc. But I can't help but feel when you are up close and personal with someone else that is sick, that you get the sinking feelings of guilt and mortality. I can't help but wonder if my presence, and my constant illness has the same effect. I also wonder how much seeing how unwell my family reacts to taking care of each other has influenced how I handle things. The last thing I ever want is to burden anyone, but do I push that to extremes, and lose my support as well?

Sigh... I don't think this is where I meant this post to go.

Mine

This is a rant... you can read if you want, but its mainly stuff i just needed to get off my chest, and is only the tip of an ice burg on a collision course.

I've recently moved home, and have been dealing with a whole whirlwind of issues that come along with being home, generally revolving around my mother. I love my mom, but she's a little much to handle, and there are things she just doesn't get.

For my birthday, my step dad is getting me a personal trainer. I think this is fantastic and couldn't come at a better time when i need the esteem boost and a fairly set rigorous schedule. He's been working with one since January, entered a weight loss competition, and dropped 61 lbs. So, I'm jumping on board. He gave me a bit to read about the science behind weight loss, etc... but the very first page talks about ways to stimulate t3 and t4 production, and how important thyroid hormone is to weight loss. This is possibly the worst thing to start off with when you are missing a thyroid and you take a set pill of t3 and t4, and no one has been able to explain how you raise your metabolism w/ out thyroid hormone... I'm a humanities major, not a biology major... I've tried asking my endo, but the just tell me about general exercise and cutting portions... sorry, i'm getting a bit side tracked... But I brought this fact up at dinner, mainly b/c a lot of my step dad's routine is based around boosting thyroid hormone production. He tells me that he talked with the trainer he's hooking me up with and she's worked w/ thyroid cancer patients before and they'd design a program for me. Mom on the other hand, responded by saying I couldn't blame all my weight gain on thyroid cancer because she knew someone else without a thyroid, who just learned how to eat right, and then became a nutritionist and she maintains her weight.

She has a lot to say about what I shouldn't be blaming on being sick. I've considered printing all the material on thyroid cancer, treatment, and side effects, particularly from chat rooms, blogs, and forums to have her sit and read, and let it soak in that in reality, i don't publicize (ok i publicize, obviously, hence the blog)I don't publicize with my everyday people every thing, some big, some small, that has really gone on, and what I tend to work with on my own.

Whats sparked me on this post is seemingly pretty petty, and not entirely cancer related, but it has to do with how she treats things that are mine. She has this giant stain glass work table thing, which she decided, to put under my bed... on top of my undergrad diploma... and the $300+ diploma frame that I won in a raffle, during my very first week of hypo hell. The whole thing is totally scratched and damaged now (if you know how to fix scratches in polished wood, let me know). Its probably one of the nicest things I will ever own. And she was all, "there was nothing under your bed... "etc. She didn't apologize, or say, well lets see if it can be fixed, or anything. And when I was moving, I went to pick up the U-haul, i had all the awards, pictures, and other odds and ends that i had had on my fridge in a pile, to be put in side a book, or something to keep them flat... she just took a trash bag, and threw everything in it... wine racks, rugs, shot glasses... and i'm like... wow, glad to see you even give the slightest about my things. And that's how all my stuff has been treated the past few years.

Oh, and she doesn't approve of what I do and don't keep. Now I've always been a pack rat to a certain extent. I actually think i've gotten better over the years, but there are still things I keep. Especially now... when I feel like I forget far more than I remember... I feel like having something there as a reminder helps keep memories in tact. Does anyone else out there find that after being sick, you place ridiculous sentimental value on the most random things?

I've been playing the grin and bare it game. Nothing new for me... I've never fought back or stood up for myself. Ironic for someone who's about to be a lawyer. If I tell her my opinions, or stand up for myself, she cries. She's bossy and needy, and tends to only see how things affect her. If I'm sick, its all about how she reacts and how she gets sick worrying about me being sick (this is everything from the sniffles to cancer). It really becomes about how stressful things are on her. I think i've mentioned before, that i've always been the hand holder of the family. How I tend to shy away from getting the attention from being sick. I generally don't like the hugging, and the "i'm sorries"... I think i've also mentioned that i've lost a lot my compassion for other people's problems. So to be home, and having mom push and exaggerate every ailment (she's only 47), ache, and problem in her life, to wander around the house for a day talking about how she's "mentally depressed"... for one day... Especially when a lot of the things wrong w/ her, she does to herself, or she can make better using basic common sense... I've solved her problems like 50 times recently, and both my dad and step-dad have turned to me, and said "you know you are just talking to a wall, you can't talk common-sense to her." And so it boils down to me telling her to suck it up; i can't respect someone and handle being bullied/and/or treated like a teenager by someone so utterly childish.

Again, sorry for the rant... i just needed to clear my head... mainly so i can continue keeping my cool.

Who makes your decisions?

For as much growing up as you are forced to do with cancer, have you ever found that you lose your independence? Your privacy? Your ability to make your own decisions?

This has become overwhelmingly apparent to me as I'm currently trying to choose my current life course. I'm graduating in a little over a month. I'm taking the Bar exam in Virginia, which means moving home to study and until I can find a job, hopefully in D.C. (home is Virginia Beach). This, like all decisions in my life, is the smartest most practical decision. I can't help but feel that making, "practical" decisions has consumed most of my life... but that is beside the point.

So this is going to sound completely irrational, that's probably why I'm avoiding saying it, ok, here it goes. I don't want to leave my stuff. Its mine. I didn't ask my parents to rent a truck. I never said I wouldn't do it. It was decided for me that we couldn't afford to rent a truck and that I should give away my bed and couch. I don't believe that we have enough space in all of our vehicles to get everything home. And I'm guestimating that I would end up losing about $600 worth of stuff (devalued). But its mine. Stuff that I have bought over the past few years to pull my life together. Bookcase, dresser etc. Now A desk and a set of drawers that really just need to be tossed. I have a lot of other larger things, small enough to fit in a vehicle, but would still be too much for all the cars. No one has asked me about if i was willing to rent the truck, or what I was really willing to give up. I don't think they understand that my stuff, in my place, is all i have that is mine. My own decisions. My life. I don't think they realize how bad it is that I even decided to move home, to revert back to being a kid. I've lived alone for 4 years. 8 years since high school. And when I get my next place, I don't want to have to start over completely.

Cancer came my senior year of college, sort of prolonging how long i needed to be taken care of. It was decided that I couldn't do Americorp, and instead needed to go to law school so I wouldn't loose my insurance. It was decided that since I already had the acceptance to Pitt, where I already lived, and where my doctors were, that I would stay here. It was decided, the day after I had radiation, which apartment I would live in... which was also how my school was chosen... A deposit down and contract does that. It was "smart", it was "practical".

Mom is trying to organize my insurance for me once I graduate and turn 26. Which means she needs to know everything about me. She organizes my bills and everything too. This just means that I don't have any privacy in my health any more. I realize there's hippa, and everything else to protect me. But in a practical world, i don't have any money. My parents do. As long as I'm stuck in job search/graduation/bar studying/cancer testing limbo, I can't seem make my own decisions.