10 days and counting

I'm getting to that freak out point. 

Correction.

I have passed the freak out point. I am on edge. I am having trouble getting to sleep and I am crying randomly throughout my day. Surgery is scary. I know, logically, it is minimally invasive, which means it could be worse, but they are still cutting out a chunk of me. Apparently, when they take it out, it can still cause tears in uncomfortable places. I am still going to wake up terrified, in a strange place, without even my wedding ring to ground me. 

Next Monday, I will take my Covid test and they will double check my blood type. Next Tuesday, I will drink my decaf tea, water, an occasional 1/2 cup of Welch's White Grape Rose', chicken broth, and a lovely bottle of magnesium citrate. Wednesday morning, time yet TBD, I will show up at the hospital and turn myself over to their care and mercy. 

This Friday, Momma and my sister, Shay-Shay, are going to take Daddy to his doctor's appointment and ask his doctor to start the process to have him placed in a nursing home. I miss my daddy. We don't know that guy in his body. 

When I wrecked my car, 08/17/1991, my daddy got me through. He was with me every day of the 2 1/2 weeks I was in the hospital, from the moment I woke up, until I went to sleep. If I took a nap, he left for a drive and smoke break, but he was always back before I woke up. When I flung my spoon of ice cream onto my shoulder because both my arms were in casts up to the elbow, he fed me. When I waited 18 hours with nothing to drink, while fighting a fever, for a CT scan, he was the hero who charged in and slew the dragon of excuses. The first time a new nurse got me out of bed, not checking to see I hadn't been up before, he caught me when I fell. He helped me put my back brace on and watched me take my first steps for a second time when I was finally able to get up and use the restroom on my own. Because he was there every day, I got to go home for two months, instead of other hospitals for two months. Daddy woke me up every morning, helped me clean myself up and get dressed for the day. He helped me get into my brace and get out of bed. Once a week, he would have a friend stay with me so he could try to get a week's worth of work done in a day. Every other day, he was with me. My daddy was my rock. He was always steady. Nothing moved him. He was strong and would protect me and look out for me. Just like daddies are supposed to do. But we spent so much time together, he became my best friend. When I went to college, I still called all the time. After I got married, when I struggled, I still called Daddy. He and Momma supported me through my divorce, and even after I married my Dan, when I was struggling, Dan would remind me to call my daddy.

When Momma and Daddy were thinking about leasing a building and running a restaurant, he called me and asked what I thought. I was so proud that my opinion mattered.

I've been grieving losing Daddy, piece by piece, for almost two years now. I naively thought that this would make my grief easier as we lost more and more of him. I could not have been more wrong. It seems as if the more I grieve, the more raw I am, and the next bout is harder than the last. People who have survived more grief than I have had to are probably thinking, "Bless her heart. She has no idea."

The emotional turmoil of either of these issues alone would be daunting. Together, they seem unconstitutionally cruel. Even so, when I saw on Facebook today, a couple I knew in college just found out that he has two inoperable stage 4 brain tumors, and they are in shock and trying to figure out what moving forward means, I almost fell into a bad trap. 

I said to myself, "See? You don't have it nearly as hard as they do right now. You don't have the right to be this messed up."

BULLSHIT! 

Our brains find so many ways to lie to us. To make things harder than they already are. To pile guilt on top of all the other crap the universe is piling on. 

It's true that what they are going through is terrible. That, however, does not negate my pain. That does not lessen the fear I feel over this surgery. Or the fear I have over losing my Daddy. Or the fear that my Momma, who is as strong as my Daddy, just in a softer way, is being torn to shreds every day trying to care for this man who is treating her in such a terrible way that my Daddy would never have allowed. That does not reduce the weight of the guilt I feel every time I wish that Daddy would just die, rather than go out in this horrible deterioration, even though I believe if he had known things would be like this, he would have have made a different choice. 

I am allowed to feel all of this. It is part of who I am. I have to acknowledge these feelings as valid. They matter to me. They are tearing me up. But I have to feel them. I don't have to like them, but I have to accept them. I have to face them so I can learn from them and keep moving forward. 

What I don't have to do is compare my pain to anyone else's. What I will not do is diminish the reality of what I am going through.

And I will strive to not let my brain add any extra weight, such as feeling guilty because I worry that if Daddy had chosen to end his life instead of putting Momma through this suffering, I might have pressured him to suffer and make us all suffer out, of selfishness. Or that if I was empathetic enough to accept that choice, I would not have been strong enough to help him if he needed me to. These are not even real situations! Why does my brain want me to feel guilty for things happening only in a parallel universe? It is ludicrous, but these feelings can be just as heavy as the valid ones. Sometimes they are worse because the hypotheticals and the what-ifs can go on forever into some very dark places. 

And then I feel stupid for falling for these same mental tricks again. 

And again.

And again.

I am trying to break this cycle. It is easier to see that I'm in it some days than others. But I am bringing these lies out into the open. I am exposing them for the false realities that they are. 

It is my hope that they will shrivel in the harsh light of reality. If that doesn't help, maybe this reminder to me will help. Otherwise, maybe the "army of people that won't let me fail," as Ash put it, can help me when I can't help myself.